


Through a Diamond Sky

by Allronix



Series: Endgame Scenario [6]
Category: Tron (1982), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Betrayal, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Established Relationship, F/M, Iso OCs - Freeform, Iso/Program tensions, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9863963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allronix/pseuds/Allronix
Summary: Jordan Canas knew her husband was carrying on something behind her back. What she hadn't bargained on was just what it was or how dangerous it could be. Add a gang of Resource Hogs exploiting Program/Iso tensions, and the potential is for all out war. That is, if they don't manage to kill the Grid's creator first.





	1. Chapter 1

“Through a Diamond Sky”

Author: Allronix

Rating: PG-13 (language, violence)

 

Summary: Jordan Canas knew her husband was carrying on something behind her back. What she hadn't bargained on was just what it was or how dangerous it could be.

 

Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape, or form associated with The Mouse or Mr. Lisberger, but they have my immense thanks as the 1982 movie helped greatly in keeping my sanity during the Comp Sci course from hell.

 

* * *

 

 

She could put two and two together. Boot camp had a tendency to cut down on your ability to tolerate equivocal statements. And after her fellow GI of a first husband got stone busted outside a “massage parlor” just off-base, there was no way in hell Jordan Canas was going to put up with that kind of bullshit a second time. First round was nightmare enough, and she earned her maiden name back after all that.

 

She thought Kevin was a different animal – computer company genius by day, but just a big kid screwing around around in an arcade by night – different enough to flirt up a storm over _Matrix Blaster_ , different enough to hit City Hall within three months of meeting, already a month pregnant. Different enough not to be threatened by her being third-generation Army, already divorced, and adamant about keeping her last name. Thank God Sam was over at her parents' tonight because all hell was about to break loose.

 

_What were you thinking, Canas? Just because he's not in Uncle Sam's good old boy club that he was any less liable to start looking elsewhere when it looks like responsibility is getting to be a raw deal?_

 

She figured out the patterns – long hours, late nights, no accountability. She finally called Encom during one of those and found out that no one, not even Alan, had a clue where Kevin was, and while the teenaged employees thought they saw him at the arcade, no one was able to find him there, either. At least she could rule out his ex as the other woman. Lora had dryly offered rope, duct-tape, and her services in hiding the body once proof was offered. (Wonderful lady – didn't deserve to be stuck in DC on government contract.)

 

So, with one rented car and a fervent wish she hadn't traded her service rifle for a drafting table, she was following Kevin's Ducati from a discreet distance.

 

Well, he pulled into the arcade. Maybe whatever girlfriend (or boyfriend) he was meeting was seeing him in that old apartment upstairs. She parked a short distance away. Good thing LA also had plenty of places you could buy a cheap wig, oversized sunglasses, and tacky jewelry. She learned this trick from one of her bunkmates in the service with a very active “social” life. A little disguise work, being mindful of your tells, and keeping quiet - people tended to not recognize you.

 

At the same time, it was hard not to feel a wicked thrill about sneaking right in under everyone's nose and not being recognized, even by Steve McBird, the manager who saw her almost daily when she came in to pump quarters into _Matrix Blaster_ to blow off steam.

 

Her eyes followed Kevin, still bounding around like some overgrown twelve-year-old through the patrons, sparing a glance at one machine or a cheer of encouragement for another player. Whoever he had waiting, Kevin didn't seem to be in a hurry.

 

Instead of heading up to the apartment, he ducked into what looked like a janitor's closet in the back. OK, Kevin was kinky. She knew that. It didn't quite seem his style, though. She waited for him to look both ways to make sure the patrons were engrossed in their electronic toys, duck behind the door, and lock it.

 

Of course, she had her _own_ set of keys. He probably forgot that part by now.

 

* * *

 

 

That board meeting was a level of hell Dante hadn't managed to invent. _Next quarter's earnings_ , they said. _The Atari crash of 1983 has rendered computer games passe,_ they said.

 

Blah. Blah. Blah. Yeah, sticking it to Dillinger was a great idea. Taking over Dillinger's job had to be the worst idea. The only reasons he took it was because Walter Gibbs had needed someone he trusted in the position...

 

And he needed the kind of access it would take to set this up under everyone's nose.

 

Kevin yawned and shook off the fatigue. There was not enough coffee in the world for all this crap, but Clu would handle things on the inside while he attended to the annoying and ever-growing list of responsibilities out in the analog world. Grid reports, check in with Clu, verify that Ophelia was _not_ trying to pick a fight with Clu, nail that gridbug outbreak in sector beta, verify Clu wasn't jumping to conclusions and accusing the Isos again...

 

Why did everything turn out to be twice as much of a pain in the ass as he expected?

 

He sighed and slid open the hidden door at the back of the closet. “You want something done right, Flynn...blah, blah, blah.”

 

A little digging through the city's archives revealed an awesome fact about the old arcade building. It was a speakeasy in the Prohibition era – well-built and well-hidden. The place had more secret entrances than the Winchester House up north and the Feds only _thought_ they bricked them all up.

 

Where once stood the biggest illegal distillery west of Chicago had been turned into a just-as-illegal experimental lab, set up in a room that used to store bootleg tequila. It was another level of hell just keeping the secret. Encom was trying to fuss with the correction algorithms to allow organic matter, including humans, to be teleported via the laser mechanism. As far as they knew, the process had been lost completely without Master Control to crunch the numbers.

 

Ophelia and Giles had figured out the corrections and presented the data during his last trip to the Grid. It had just become safe to transport a second human – no more than that. And there was still no progress on the calculations needed to bring an Iso to the analog world, much less a Basic. What made it all worth entertaining the headache was the idea of imagining Alan's face once he got a good look at Tron...

 

The door slid open and he started taking the steps down to the makeshift lab. Kevin paused on the third stair and waited – was that the sound of a door closing?

 

The noise of another Q-Bert falling to its death and Frogger being squished by a car drowned out the sound. Great, he was beginning to hear things.

 

With a sigh, Kevin uncovered the laser, checked out the parts and began running the safety check. Upgraded digitizing software running, pattern buffer online, countdown engaged..

 

_Okay, deep breath...assemble your “Creator” dignity, remember to smile..._

 

The jangling sound of a purse hitting the floor jerked him out of the chair. Then, he heard feet on the stairs.

 

“Aw, shit.”

 

Jordan was ripping the brunette wig off her head and tossing aside the sunglasses as she barged down the stairs. “Whose ass am I kicking after I kick yours, Kevin?”

 

“Jor...Jordan?” _The laser countdown's engaged!_   “Stand back. Let me...”

 

“I've caught you red-handed, and I'm not giving you time to hide evidence.“

 

 _Ohshitohshitohshitoh._ “Jordan, stand back. It's for your own safety!”

 

“Worry about your own damn safety!”

 

The countdown was not stopping, and there wasn't enough time to reboot, no matter how good video games made his reflexes. “Jordan, it's nothing like that! Calm down for a second and let me -”  


No good. Wife was still on the literal warpath and having flashbacks to that asshole in San Diego she divorced. Why did this have to happen right now of all times? She stormed into the room; clothing and hair disheveled, fists up, eyes blazing.

 

“I thought we had an agreement, Kevin. What are you doing?”

 

“Jordan, duck!”

 

She never saw the laser. Unable to stop the firing or to get her out of the way, it nailed her square in the back. All he could do was watch helplessly as her body was disassembled a voxel at a time and pulled through the beam.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jordan thought she was dealing with a cheating hubby. The truth...is a lot stranger.

**Part 2**

 

 

Jordan didn't know what hit her. The dingy arcade basement winked out of existence and this candy-colored kaleidoscope of patterns and shapes danced before her eyes for a small eternity – delicate lines and shapes not found in nature passed in front of her. It was beautiful, terrifying, and completely brain-shattering all at once. Finally, the whole thing went to bright white light as she found her body seeming to piece itself back together. Ungracefully, she stumbled a few steps and fell flat on her face. She hadn't felt this bad since she went two rounds on the roller coaster while drunk.

 

“This isn't Flynn.” The voice was male, and sounded vaguely like Alan, but had a slight electronic distortion. “But I'm not detecting any damaged code or malfunction.”

 

_Says you._

 

“He was working with Ophelia on a correction mechanism so that another User could be brought in the Grid with him.” The other voice was female, and had that same bizarre distortion. What kind of crazy Twilight Zone was this place?

 

There was a whining noise that sounded like a broken pinball machine, followed by another announcement from Female. “Notification from Flynn. He says the laser needs to cool down first. It will be five minutes before he can engage the firing mechanism again.”

 

“Five _minutes_?!” Male was clearly annoyed. “I kinda wish he told us what was going on or at least went through the beam first.”

 

“This _is_ Flynn we're talking about.” Okay, whoever these two were, they knew her husband and his tendency to be a royal flake at times.

 

Jordan dared to crack open her eyes. She was lying on a cool surface that looked impossibly clean and smooth, made of no substance she could easily identify. Everything had sharp angles and strange, inorganic curves, like it was drawn in CAD software. Most of it was some uniform color, trimmed in lines of neon blue and indigo that reminded her of Las Vegas at night – inky darkness and too brightly-lit at the same time. She couldn't seem to raise her head, so all she could see of Male and Female were their feet, clad in black boots of a vinyl-type substance. Female's boots had a slight heel and indigo striping. Male's had only a single, small white dot just below the knee.

 

“I don't feel so good,” she admitted.

 

“Transport disorientation,” Female said. “You probably aren't used to it like Flynn is. Tron, she might need to lie down for a few seconds. Take her to the closest cot. I'll summon Clu. He'll probably want to see her.”

 

Wait a minute. Why did those names sound familiar?

 

Jordan was aware of being picked up and slung into a fireman's carry. The edge of something circular and hard pressed into the front of her torso. “Take it easy, User. No one here will hurt you.”

 

Her sense of balance still too shot to walk on her own and her head aching too badly to summon her pride, Jordan sighed and acquiesced to the stranger's hold.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She didn't know how long she was passed out, but when she woke up, the headache and dizzy feeling were gone.

 

The room was stark and bare, well past minimalist design; solid black walls and floors, a raised indigo area that seemed to be a bed (it was certainly soft enough), and a small window. It looked like a bad attempt at minimalist design or the worst aspects of modernism - too functional and uniform. Even a splash of color or a contrast in shape would make this room's design a thousand times more polished.

 

Jordan rolled off the bed and looked out the window. Wherever she was, it certainly didn't look like LA. An immense, glittering city of cobalt and turquoise lights gleamed in the distance. “What is this place?” she wondered aloud.

 

“You are looking at Tron City, capital and most populous sector of the Grid,” said a voice from behind her. Jordan turned to see a reedy-looking fellow with a shaved head. He wore something that looked like leather or vinyl, but there were no creases or folds anywhere. It also seemed to have a pattern of indigo-lit streaking – two circles at his waist and a thick stripe down the left side of his chest.

 

“And you are...?”

 

“Jarvis, assistant to the Tower Guardian. I'd heard there was a second User that made it to the Grid, but I hadn't expected anyone quite as...attractive.”  


Jordan rolled her eyes, and was about to use the time-honored trick of showing off her wedding band to discourage that line of conversation. That's when she caught sight of her sleeve. She seemed to be wearing black elbow-length gloves streaked with cool white lines. The rest of her clothing seemed to be a sleeveless leotard with matching streaks of white curving from shoulder to ankle. The texture was vaguely leather-like. And what was strapped to her back?

 

“I apologize, but the Tower Guardian wanted to check you for damage before Flynn arrived,” Jarvis said. “In the process, you've been outfitted with proper attire and an identity disk.”

 

 _Glow in the dark, skintight vinyl catsuit is 'proper' attire? Someone's got a fetish_. She pulled off the disk. Again, it was made of no identifiable material and looked like a glowing Frisbee. She handled it carefully, as the edges also felt absurdly sharp. “Any way I can see this 'guardian?'”

 

He was either oblivious to how ticked off she was or just pretending to be obtuse. Jordan didn't care either way. “Certainly, I'll take you to her.”

 

As she walked down the strange corridors of this 'tower,' Jarvis prattled on like a well-trained tour guide.

 

“This Input/Output tower was the first building constructed on the Grid. It overlooks the Sea of Simulation, a pool of matter and raw material our Creator uses to build and improve upon the Grid's infrastructure. At present, there are over twenty million Programs populating the system. Many of us, including myself, were ported over from the Encom mainframe...”

 

“Wait a minute, you're a computer program?”

 

“Yes,” Jarvis said matter-of-factly. “Didn't Flynn brief you before digitization?”

 

“I kinda invited myself here,” she said. It wasn't that much of a lie, but it was becoming clear that Kevin's side project was something much stranger than she even dreamed. “Didn't get briefed.”

 

“Ah, then I'll take you to the Guardian right away. She will be able to explain in greater detail,” Jarvis said. This guy seemed to be a born bureaucrat. She could easily see him behind the desk of the DMV or sitting somewhere at an IRS office, being perfectly polite and completely aggravating at the same time.

 

Jarvis led Jordan into a large, round room, still of the same inorganic, minimalist style. She started mentally calculating improvements she would make to the style. There was a difference between minimalist and being too sparse.

 

“Madame Guardian, our guest is awake.”

 

The Guardian was a female (or was that female-appearing?) Program wearing what looked to be a kaftan with indigo lines, including a thick yoke across her shoulders. There was a triangle pattern just above her breasts. Jordan had to squint when she saw the Guardian's face. Hell if she didn't look like Lora Bradley's long-lost twin.

 

“Greetings. I'm Yori, and I'm the Guardian for the Input/Output tower. Flynn told me that your designation is 'Jordan.' Is that correct?” The voice identified her as the one of the people...programs...whatever...that got to see her less-than-graceful entry to the system.

 

“Yes,” Jordan said, still rattled by the completely surreal situation. She thought she was just going to walk in on a cheating husband. She hadn't wagered on anything like this.

 

“I imagine you have a lot of questions,” she said. “Flynn certainly did when he first came over.”

 

“Well, that's an understatement,” Jordan said. “Were you the one who took off my clothing and strapped the Frisbee to my back?”

 

She looked apologetic. “Take a seat. It'll still be a while before Flynn's able to power up the laser again. I'll explain.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn has some explaining to do.

**Chapter 3**

 

 

The five minutes seemed to pass in Grid time for him. It took him a full minute just to verify Jordan was in the system at all. Unfortunately, he had no clue if she arrived intact, safe, or if she was even...

 

_Don't think it._

 

Heart pounding, palms sweating, stomach knotted, he welcomed and dreaded the kiss of the laser beam and stumbled into the Tower's receiving area. Already, Clu was waiting, hands behind back. His digital avatar was pre-programmed to come to the Tower upon seeing the beam.

 

“Where is she?” Kevin stammered. “She okay? Is...”

 

“Jordan arrived safely. She's over in the reception room with Yori. You really should have warned us beforehand.”

 

“Didn't have time. She stepped into the beam by accident.”

 

“Well, while our illustrious Tower Guardian is wasting her resources briefing the lost User, you grace us with your presence once a cycle, only to play around and then vanish...”

 

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. Inventive, brilliant, snarky, smug...Yup. Clu had all of his better traits, and most of his worst. _Look at it this way – it's great practice for when Sam hits his teens._  


“Sector Theta-eight had another outbreak of gridbugs. Tron took care of those, but the source has yet to be determined. There are also some strange power allocation issues in Kappa Five that Shaddox set out to investigate three microcycles ago. He hasn't reported back. There's been another clash in the Zeta sector. Damn Iso colony is crowding out room for the new Basic settlement.”

 

“I'll go talk this one out with the settlement leadership. Clu, they're part of the system, remember? And can we please get to Grid business later?”

 

His avatar folded his arms. “You ask for a briefing upon arrival. I'm giving you one. If you showed up more often...”

 

“Clu, I'm coming as often as I can. User time...works differently. That's why you were invented.”

 

“And how many times have we all heard that one?” Clu said. “Maybe if you had fewer things to juggle out there, you could pay more attention to what's going on in here?”

 

Board meetings from hell, accusations of having a lover on the side, an avatar program getting in his face, Jordan being User of Users knew where...”Clu, take me to Jordan first. I have to see my wife. I have to know she's okay.”

 

Clu scowled. He had seen the female-designated User briefly, but did not introduce himself as she was with Yori, and the Tower Guardian had a lot more patience for User requests and irrelevant questioning than he did. He knew he should be more awed by the fact the upgrades were successful and happier to see that his creator's counterpart had arrived into the system. However, “Jordan-User” didn't seem all that impressive. Aside from the strange aura that marked her as something other, she seemed to be little more than a lost script.

 

_Worse – she acts like one of the Isos that crawled out of the sea; all questions and with no stated purpose for being. Will she add to the order of this system or unbalance it further?_

 

Deciding it was better to not question his creator further, Clu merely walked a step ahead, leading his User to the Tower's reception room.

 

 

* * *

 

Jordan was having a little trouble absorbing half of the answers she was getting from Yori. It answered dozens of nagging questions, like the time when he had a bit too much to drink and called Alan “Tron,” why he treated Frisbee matches like life and death combat, and why he treated computers with a strange reverence. Every answer, though, opened up a dozen more questions.

 

The good news: his secrets apparently didn't include mistresses, boyfriends, prostitutes, or cruising the Sunset Strip. The bad news: he still had a double life, far more elaborate and bizarre than anyone could have suspected. Her mind reeled and she felt vaguely sick to her stomach (if she even had one now – Yori let her know that her physical form wasn't exactly the same as it was in analog). Why did it take an accident with his clandestine lab just to learn what he was doing? Why didn't he trust her with something this huge? She could handle not talking Encom business, but this...

 

Jesus, she married a stranger again. What in hell was she thinking? What was this going to mean? It was just herself last time, now that there was Sam to think about...

 

“Jordan?”

 

Jordan leaped to her feet to see...Okay, this was surreal. Either she was seeing double, or Kevin cloned himself. The one with a better-developed case of five-o-clock-shadow ran over to her and pulled her into a hug.

 

“Jordan, babe...Are you okay? Are you...?”

 

Normally, she would have laughed and hugged back, maybe even kissed him hello. Right now, she was just too shaken to return the gesture. Why did he lie all this time? Why didn't he show her this before now?

 

“I'm okay,” she admitted, struggling to keep her voice level. “But very confused.”

 

He pulled back, his face lit with that cross of an adolescent's brashness and a little boy's wonder that one else could imitate. Now, she _knew_ she was dealing with Kevin. “I imagine so. It's pretty awesome, isn't it?”

 

She pushed him away. “Yeah, and when were you planning on telling me about it? Have you told _anyone_ on our side of the screen about this?”

 

He tried to say something, stopped, studied his shoes, tried to speak again, but nothing came out.

 

Jordan tapped her foot and scowled. “You didn't trust me.”

 

“It's not like that! It's...it's...” He waved his arms around as if to gesture to everything at once. “This was in the picture before I even met you.”

 

“Really? All the more reason to be pissed off about being kept in the dark.”

 

Kevin paced and ran a hand through his hair. Yori had the grace to step out of the room, but Clu was still standing by, an unreadable expression on his face. He was relieved beyond measure that Jordan was safe, and part of him was actually glad that she was in the digital world with him. At the same time, this was _not_ how he wanted her to find out, and he never had figured out a good explanation for his experiments on the Grid. “Jordan, half the board already wants to put me into a fucking straitjacket. How the hell do you explain _this_ without the other half agreeing?”

 

“The board is one thing, but I am the one crazy enough to marry and have a kid with you!” Jordan fired back. “Fit me for the fucking straitjacket!”

 

“Maybe they'll put us in the same padded cell.” He was trying for sarcastic humor, but the anger still bubbled up through his voice. “The Flynn-Canas honeymoon suite.”

 

“How romantic,” she drawled. “But I don't think I could take it. All those late nights...all those strange behaviors. You're sitting on...” She tried to find the words, but was too angry to manage it. “A double life; one where Sam and I don't factor in!”

 

“Jordan, it's...” He puffed out a breath. “Look, I should have told you. I wanted to tell you. _I didn't know how.”_

 

“Didn't know, or just didn't want to figure it out?”

 

“There's things I won't ask you about. I don't ask about your ex, I don't ask about your time in the service unless you volunteer the information.”

 

“That's my past. This is ongoing. There's a difference,” she pointed out.

 

He sighed. Great, he was in trouble, he didn't want to be, and he had no idea how to quit digging. “Now that you know? I mean...this is the bottom of my secrets, Jordan. Yeah, I screwed up in not telling you, but what else do I need to say or do on this?”

 

She held up her hand. “Just...give me time, first. And who is your twin over there, watching us fight?”

 

“Oh.” He almost forgot. “Um, Jordan, this is Clu. Clu, Jordan. He's the administrator Program I made to run the Grid when I'm taking care of life outside.”

 

“Like when you're with me?”

 

“Yeah, like when I'm with you, or running Encom, or at the arcade, or...yeah.”

 

“I'll leave the pair of you to continue fighting,” Clu said, one eyebrow raised. “After all, she does take priority over this world.”

 

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Clu, do not start.”

 

“So you're juggling the world in here about as well as you're juggling the world out there?” Jordan asked. She shrugged and looked over to Clu. “I'm betting you have the patience of a saint.”

 

“It's not easy,” Clu remarked, the Program showing a faint trace of Kevin's sense of humor.

 

The argument was cut short when the portal slid open. Two very agitated scout Programs – a male and a female - marched in, Tron at their heels. “Creator, I'm very sorry to interrupt you, but this cannot wait,” said the male.

 

“Okay, Gabe. What is it?”

 

“Shaddox has missed his check-in. And we found this on the far end of Kappa Sector.”

 

The female scout walked up to Kevin and knelt at his feet. It was a gesture he really tried to discourage, but many Programs insisted. She pulled an identity disk off her back – a second disk. As soon as it was pressed into his hands, the image of Shaddox came into view – dark skin and neatly-groomed dark hair, including his distinctive beard. Few Programs added facial hair to their appearance routines. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any recording on the disk that would indicate what happened.

 

“I'll go out for him,” Tron said.

 

“I'll head out with you. Whatever's happened to Shaddox, he's in deep trouble, and a little User-Power probably would go a long way.” He looked apologetically at Jordan. “Jordan, I'm sorry, but this is serious. Someone's life is at stake out there. I'll be back as soon as I can, and I'll answer any questions you have about this place – _any_ of them.”  
  
“What's my job?” Clu asked. “Am I going out with you?”  
  
“No. Stay with Jordan. Keep an eye on her. Hell, show her some of the combat training arenas if you need to keep her occupied.”  
  
“Combat? You told me she was a builder.”  
  
“She's both. Like me. And she can kick my butt at _Matrix Blaster_ , so find her something to build or something to shoot. I'll be back as soon as I can.”   
  
Before either of them could say anything further, Kevin, Tron, and the scouts were racing out the door and into the cycle bay.  
  
"He's asking to _get_ shot," Jordan grumbled.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 

 

Kappa Sector was undeveloped space. Kevin had factored in expansion when he created the Grid, and planned to upgrade as needed. The appearance of the Isos on an already crowded system posed its own challenges, as did the gridbugs that cropped up inevitably with every new addition to the system. Bugs were annoying, but not preventable. Even the finest-crafted code would have some digital cockroach hiding in its depths, just waiting for the unsuspecting to trigger it.

 

Ah, the pursuit of perfection – always an uphill battle.

 

The question of Jordan's safety having been addressed for the time being, the next issue on the plate was Shaddox. The architect Program was in big trouble. The only good news is that his disk could have crumbled if he was de-rezzed. He was still alive, but there wasn't any telling for how long.

 

“Any idea about his mission, Tron?” he asked via the cycle's comm. “What was he scouting out here?”

 

“There's small Iso settlement in the middle of the sector, but some Basics also wanted to put a settlement in the sector to act as a bulwark against those gridbugs. So far, the Iso population has been content to segregate itself, but that's not sitting well with many of us Basics,” Tron admitted. “Even I wonder sometimes what they're up to.”

 

“They don't want to impose,” Kevin explained. “They're different in that they don't get directives or parameters. They're new to life and they're still learning the system. Given time, they'll integrate. I'm sure of it.”

 

“You are sure?”

 

“Dude, how awkward was I when I first got zapped in here?”

 

“Let's see? First words out of your mouth were blasphemy, you completely ignored the rules of the light-cycle matches, you had no idea what to do with an energy spring, and you made a pass at Yori.” Thankfully, there was a wry smile in Tron's tone. Despite the harsh conditions they met under, and the strange wrinkle the statuses of User and Champion brought them, Kevin thought of Tron as the best friend he ever would have.

 

“Bit more than making a pass, but yeah,” Kevin admitted. “Isos are like Users and like Programs at the same time. A point-five in a one and zero world; a bridge between your world and mine. They hold the key to linking our worlds together in ways bigger than one crazy User and a stolen laser, but they're nothing to be afraid of.”

 

“We don't fear their differences much as we fear obsolescence, my friend. Programs were designed for purpose, to be useful and carry out directives. De-rez is not as horrible a prospect as uselessness. Our fear is that an Iso has no directives, no apparent purpose, but that they will somehow find a way to supplant us despite this.”

 

“There are roughly a hundred thousand Isos to twenty million Programs. They're never going to be in a position to take over, despite what the glitched code in the bad sectors want to shriek on street corners. It's just not going to happen.”

 

“I'm picking up a disturbance in track seven,” Tron said. “Changing course to investigate.”

 

“Right behind you, man.”

 

The disturbance was centered on an energy spring on the outskirts of the Iso settlement. The spring itself was in a craggy valley, surrounded by jagged, pixellated cliffs. Three Isos, white lines and black suits moving in a blur of motion, were battling a swarm of gridbugs. Gridbugs were literal system bugs – appearing as oversized green insects, some of which were the size of a small house. The more the Grid was settled, the fewer places they could manifest. However, an infestation could be deadly to any Program unlucky enough to be caught unaware by a swarm.

 

Derezzing their cycles, Kevin and Tron pulled their disks and fell into the common attack pattern – back to back, moving almost in synch as their discs cut the air and sailed towards their opponents. This was almost routine for them, and the satisfying sizzle of the bugs de-rezzing into useless code never lost a bit of charm.

 

Two of the bugs tried to close in on them, using their greater size as an advantage. Tron ducked, rolled, and fired back with the disk, cutting off the front one's leg. Kevin's strategy was less straightforward. Diving between the monster's legs, he brought the disk up as a melee weapon and sliced it open, the creature giving a shriek before it shattered into voxels.

 

The stranded Isos, seeing as they now had some help, rallied themselves. Using the cliffs to gain a height advantage, they began sniping downwards at the bugs with their own disks. It wasn't long before the last bug was destroyed.

 

The three Isos hopped down from the cliffs and the larger of the two males approached them. “Thanks for the help.” He then got a look at who his rescuers were and gasped. “Creator? And...Oh, my.”

 

Kevin threw up his hands. “It's okay. We were in the sector.”

 

“We are looking for Shaddox,” Tron explained, taking off Shaddox's disk and activating the display so that the Isos could see the image. “Our scouts found his disk, but no trace of him.”

 

The Iso looked at his companions, but none of them had an answer to give them. “Well, I'm Herd. My companions are Charn and Kanna,” he said, indicating the other male and the female. “We haven't seen anyone else in this sector aside from that gang of Resource Hogs. We were trying to find their base when we ran into those bugs.”

 

“Resource Hogs? Great,” Kevin grumbled. “Looks like we've got some suspects.”

 

“There have been skirmishes with them on and off since we came to the sector,” Kanna explained, folding her arms. “We realize that some of the Basics are uncomfortable with our presence...No disrespect intended, Champion.”

 

“None taken,” Tron explained. “It's an adjustment for all of us. And I'll fight for the right of all the Grid citizens to live peacefully.”

 

“We'll take you to our settlement. Maybe someone there knows what happened to your companion.”

 

“Thanks,” Kevin said. “And whatever you can tell us about the Resource Hogs on the way would be appreciated.”

 

* * *

 

 

Clu wasn't exactly pleased to be stuck on an over-glorified escort mission. There were still far too many imperfections in the system; half-finished settlements, traffic bottlenecks, and a never-ending onslaught of gridbugs to chase out of the system. If Shaddox could not fend for himself, then he wasn't worth his resources. Still, Kevin was “User,” and that status accorded respect. He could not understand how his User's sentiment fit into the greater picture of a perfect system, and it really wasn't his business to know. He had his directives, and would follow. So far, sympathy was a tolerable imperfection on the part of his creator, but Clu hoped he would overcome it with future upgrades.

 

Right now, he had his orders to find Jordan-User “something to build or something to shoot.” They were in his command center, and he was showing her the layout of the city on the largest overview he had.

 

The more he seemed to explain, the more she seemed to retreat into silence. It was only after he had gone over an explanation of the entire traffic layout without so much as a word from her that he stopped himself.

 

“Jordan?” he asked.

 

“Oh,” she said. She was distracted, much like Kevin could be when he was listening to the necessary system reports. “Sorry. Thank you, Clu. You've been very informative.”

 

“Informative, but you're still processing something else,” he pointed out. “C'mon. What is it?”

 

“You're just...a little unsettling, is all,” she admitted. “You have his face and his voice, but I could never picture him getting this excited about city planning.”

 

“It's what I was designed for. 'Create the Perfect system' Your counterpart created me because he has to be in his 'real' world, attending to whatever it is he has out there.”

 

“He runs two businesses – a Fortune 500 company and a hell of an arcade. He's also got me and we have Sam. He would be a busy man even without this whole new world to manage. Then again, he's very bad about saying 'no' to a challenge.” She shrugged. “I'm just as bad.”

 

Clu put his hands behind his back and assessed Jordan for a picosecond. Certainly, she was quite attractive. He had been made in his creator's image, and with many of the same preferences. “Is it true that Users don't know their functions or have directives?”

 

Jordan scowled. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

 

“See this city, this system? Every Program in it has a directive. Mine is to build a perfect system. Yori's is to run that tower, repairing and maintaining the system. Tron's is to fight whatever a User tells him to fight. Everyone has a place and a function here, from building to entertainment.”

 

She looked out over the city. “Oh, that? Well, Kevin's right about that. We don't know what we're designed for. We don't even know if there's a higher power designing us at all. If there is, we haven't heard from him. I guess that's why I went into the Army. It took me a while to figure out what I was good for. By the time I got out, I had some college credit and a talent for drawing buildings. Seemed logical enough to get a degree and get paid for it.”

 

“So, no directives. No explicit functions spelled out for you. How does your world even function?”

 

She smiled wryly. “Sometimes, I wonder that myself.”

 

Clu took a step toward her, giving her another appraising look. “Now that you are here, though, what do you think about all this?”

 

Warily, she looked to the city's layout screen and then back to Clu. “It's all very...orderly. But I still wish Kevin told me about this life he has.” She turned away from Clu and kept her eyes on the viewer. “And even when he comes into the system, he assigns me a babysitter and runs off.”

 

“That would be Flynn for you,” Clu said, sharing his User's counterpart's frustration. “Comes in, listens to only the briefest of Grid reports, and then goes chasing adventure with Tron.”

 

“The security program that looks a little like Alan, right? Just how close are they?”

 

“If that's what you're wondering, then the answer is 'no.' Tron's bundled with Yori and pretty much has eyes for her only. Flynn respects that.” _Though I wouldn't be shocked if all three of them were bundled and didn't inform me – or her - about it,_ he added to himself.

 

“So he comes in, takes care of the minimum, and goes off to play games?” Jordan sighed. “Yeah, sounds just like him.”

 

 _So he abandons her like he abandons me,_ Clu thought. _Would it be so bad if...No, that's not in my directive._

 

“Who is Shaddox, anyway?” she asked, derailing Clu's speculation.

 

“Shaddox is a builder, an architect Program. His task is to build new settlements, plan new cities. He did the majority of planning on Tron City's outskirts, and founded Alpha colony. Of course, our population has been increasing, so his directive has kept him busier than ever.”

 

“So he was scouting out a new colony and got himself into trouble?”

 

“There is always trouble here. Gridbugs in the outlying sectors, gangs of Resource Hogs wanting to suck up more processor and memory than their functions are worth, glitched scripts that fail to heed their own directives. It's a pain in the processor just to keep it all going.”

 

“It sounds like it would be. But...” She put her hand on the panel and turned off the viewer. “But if _he_ isn't going to show me this new world, I guess I'm going to have to ask _you_ to be my guide. I don't want to see it from the confines of a tower, Clu. Show me this world. Show me how perfect you've made it.”

 

Clu couldn't help a smile. His User was missing out on quite the opportunity. “Well, the directive he gave was to find you 'something to build or something to shoot.' Let's start our tour at the game arena, shall we?”

 

* * *

 

 

Jordan never was one for introspection. The closest she got to that was when she was hunched over her drafting table and trying to figure out how the floorplan of an office building fit together. Thinking about problems took energy away from actually fixing it. Sitting and stewing over trouble didn't make her feel better, either.   
  
The basics: the city she was cruising was inside a computer, populated mostly by Programs. She learned there was a difference between “program” and “Program” – some scripts were too simple to achieve the complexity and sentience of the humanoid Programs. Those that did achieve sentience tended to resemble their creators. They also seemed to have some concept of religion and spirituality (though she didn't believe much in those herself).   
  
Her husband pawned her off on his somewhat-creepy administrative Program which looked and sounded like him, but had an entirely different way of moving and seemed much more “orderly” than Kevin ever thought of being. Meanwhile, he was off chasing some emergency with security software. These, she would just accept. Thinking about them wouldn't do any good, and would take away a chance to explore this world on her own terms.   
  
The lightcycle under her had a smoother ride and better handling than the matching Ducati Kevin got her as a wedding present, and she had plenty of practice riding in tandem. The glittering turquoise lights of the city blurred around her as she wove through traffic, paralleling Clu's cycle.   
  
The “game arena” was more impressive than Memorial Coliseum, even with the Olympic Games preparation nearly complete. It was a massive, sprawling complex of offices, dormitories for the athletes, and “tutorial areas” for the various competitions. The arena itself was jaw-droppingly massive – easily the size of a skyscraper and a couple city blocks. They pulled up to the entrance and the lightcycles dispersed back into their rods.  
  
_Think about how much I'd save on parking if motorcycles could do that in my world._  
  
Clu explained as he called up the needed permissions to open the gate. “The gaming complex is one of the gems of the Grid. Home to the Games; the primary form of entertainment. Even the Isos will crawl out of their holes when a tournament is going on.”  
  
“Isos?”  
  
Clu sighed. “They're nothing. Rogue scripts that crawled out of the Sea of Simulation. They attract gridbugs and don't seem to have an actual directive or function. Still, Flynn wants to keep them around. He must have a reason. Anyway, let's head to the tutorial areas.”  
  
“You've been trained on these games?”  
  
“Yes,” Clu admitted. “Since Flynn can't often be here, I have to know whatever functions he would know, and that includes the Games.”   
  
_Computer games,_ Jordan thought. _Kevin, your obsessions are showing..._ “I take it that this is a little more intensive than dropping a quarter down a slot and grabbing a joystick.”  
  
“Joysticks aren't used for much, aside from a handful of vehicle controls. Let's try a target range first. Yori already outfitted you with a disk, I see.”  
  
“She said it was a storage medium. Everything I learn, or whatever skills I acquire here will be stored on it. It's also whatever passes for ID in this place.”  
  
Clu snorted. “That, and a powerful weapon if you need to defend yourself. Funny she'd leave that out, as her counterpart is the grand champion of disk combat.”   
  
“Maybe she didn't think I'd be seeing combat. Even in our world, females are heavily discouraged or outright barred from the front lines. Not to say we don't fight our own battles. I had to argue with the 'big boys' just to get more than the bare minimum of time on the rifle range.”  
  
“And what does your gender designation have to do with anything?” Clu said, putting his hands behind his back as they walked into the gate. “If someone can fight, they can fight. If they cannot fight, then they get out of the way of those who can.”  
  
“I was just a grunt in the motor pool. I didn't make the rules...or program the directives,” she said. “It's a long, tangled, and annoying history with User-kind. Logic doesn't apply.”  
  
“I've noticed that,” he said darkly, leading her down to a hall and opening one of the rooms. “This one isn't in use right now, and it ought to suit our needs.”   


 

* * *

 

 

The Iso settlement was far into Kappa sector and very small – no more than five residential towers and an administrative node surrounding a power pool. Herd took point while Charn and Kanna flanked Kevin and Tron on their way in.

 

Despite the change in parameters Isos brought, and Tron's unease over this new factor on the Grid in theory, he found it hard to maintain that wariness in face-to-face contact with Isos. Most of them simply carried out their business and did no harm to their Program neighbors. The braver ones were venturing into the cities, where their curiosity and almost User-like thought process created functions and directives for them to carry out. There was already one who set up a dancing club in the Entertainment Sector. Another Iso, Aliza, had started collecting data files and information on a variety of topics, and gathering subroutines, organizing them into a “library.” Isos devoured data files like starving Programs faced with a data spring. Few like himself were interested in such matters, but Yori was an exception. If she wasn't at the Tower, or visiting Radia, she was over at Aliza's “library,” satiating the curiosity she inherited from Lora-3's spark.

 

Perhaps their ability to find functions where none existed previously was why Kevin was so enamored of them. They thought like Users and struggled like Users, so a User would understand an Iso better than he would understand a Program.

 

Their light-cycles folded back into their batons at the edge of the settlement. “This way,” Herd said, leading them toward the small administration building.

 

On the way, they saw that the energy pool in the middle of the settlement had a half-collapsed structure of blocks.

 

“Sculpture?” Kevin asked. He had seen similar drawings on Jordan's desk.

 

“It was,” Herd said quietly. “But on their last raid, the Hogs came in and destroyed it. They've got suffusion guns in addition to their disks. Powerful weapons, but they drain energy like crazy.” Still looking unsettled, he tried to motion them forward.

 

“What's this?” Tron asked sharply, gesturing to some thick, black marks on the ruined stone. He used the blocks as stepping stones to get a closer look at the markings.

 

“Champion, it's not your -”

 

“Flynn, you need to have a look at this.”

 

Kevin took the same route over the blocks and up to the sculpture. In crude lettering that looked like it was burned in, read the words:

 

_ISO =VIRUS_

 

In smaller letters, still looking like a black scar on concrete:

 

_STOP THE INVASION – DE-REZ ALL ISO!_

 

“Aw, fuck,” Kevin grumbled.

 

“The Resource Hogs did this?” Tron asked, anger creeping into his voice.

 

Herd merely nodded.

 

 

After that, they were brought into the administrative building. Already two other Isos were busying themselves with layout plans. Herd cleared his voice

 

“Tor, Maya. We're back from patrol. We'd run into some Gridbugs, and...well...”

 

The two Iso leaders looked up.  Tor, a large-built Iso male with shocking white hair looked over the guests and scowled. “This can't be what it looks like.”

 

“Tor!” scolded Maya “Manners!”

 

“Maybe we should interrogate them as to the whereabouts of our settlers,” Tor argued. “Of course, when I made an inquiry in Tron City, no one could be bothered with Iso concerns -”

 

“Uh...Tor, right?” Kevin said. “I may not have been in here the day you came out of the Sea, or made a proper introduction...”

 

Tor's electric blue eyes became the size of ID disks when he caught a good look at their faces. “I'm not dealing with Administrator Clu, am I?”

 

“Uh, no.”

 

Tor gulped, trying almost comically to gather up his dignity. Fortunately, Maya was much more personable.

 

“Creator, please forgive Tor. We've been fighting this battle ourselves for several cycles now, and the Administrator has brushed off our concerns. We thought we would have to take matters into our own hands.”

 

Kevin stepped forward. “We're here because Shaddox, one of the architect Programs from the City, was scouting out here and went missing. We found his disk, but no trace of him. We also saw the damage they did to your sculpture and the less than charming graffiti they left behind.”

 

“Now, they're concerned,” Tor grumbled. “It's when one of their own...”

 

“Tor,” scolded Tron. “Once we solve this, I want the names of the Programs you spoke to in the City. It's not right that this didn't reach my attention. As I told Herd outside, I fight for the right of all the Grid's citizens – Iso and Basic alike. If something is disrupting the peace, then it needs to be dealt with.”

 

“It's a gang of Resource Hogs. Several dozen of them,” he explained. “They've been capturing our people from their homes, or when they go out for a drink of energy. We're under siege in our own settlement. Our three scouts,” Torin said, indicating the trio of Isos they met earlier. “Were brave enough to try and locate where those viruses are hiding.”

 

“All we found were a nest of Gridbugs,” Kanna said. “The Hogs must be somewhere in the valley. It's the only place in a microcycle's ride we haven't checked.”

 

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Half this sector is still uncharted, but someplace where they can hit and run - that'll be a good place to start. Maya, Tor, we can join your next patrol headed out there. Maybe a little 'fear of the User' will convince them that attacking your people is a bad idea.”

 

Herd nodded to the pair of settlement leaders. “We can be ready in a matter of seconds. I'll summon the next party. Meet us at the west edge of the settlement.”

 

As the settlement leaders excused themselves and Herd went to rally the scouts, Kevin shook his head and turned to Tron. “For a world of ones and zeroes, it annoys the hell out of me how much User-style problems you've picked up.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“First time I was here, it was persecution based on belief. We did the same thing on my side – people died horribly there, too. We're still killing each other over it. And now this place gets racism, too; people harassing each other based on their origins. You'd think there'd be a way to code out that crap.”

 

“If they're targeting the Isos, then why would they capture Shaddox?”

 

“Crime of opportunity, most likely. Plus, it certainly got our attention. They won't be content to continue hassling just the Isos, though. Too few of them to make it worth their while. They'll spread out to the Basics. If more go missing the Isos are going to get blamed. That way, they can get the Isos out of this sector for good. Any Programs wandering in here are going to end up falling right into a trap.”

 

“But why start a war between the Basics and the Isos?”

 

“Simple. War kills. The fewer Programs – and Isos - that are alive and running, the more resources are freed up for them to guzzle.”

 

* * *

 

 

The lightcycles were rezzed up again, but this time, Tron insisted on taking point. Kevin was right behind him, and the three Iso scouts on their flanks and bringing up the rear.

 

The valley was a craggy, narrow passage, barely big enough for two lightcycles side by side, so they moved to double file as they maneuvered through the sharp turns.

 

“Everyone, stay sharp,” Tron warned through the coms. “And check above you. If an attack is going to come, it'll be from -”

 

“Users! What is _that_?”

 

The massive two-legged shape loomed straight ahead, the single ominous eye with the large spotlight conducting its unblinking scan. It had seen better days, its surface dented and pixellated, and it was scored from top to foot with the ugly markings and rude language they saw on the Iso town sculpture.

 

“Aw, man! They didn't!” Kevin shouted.

 

“Recognizer!” Tron shouted. “Everyone, between its legs. Full speed!”

 

The engines gunned and the five went racing for the space between the recognizer's legs. The lookouts no doubt saw them, and were closing the legs shut. Four of the cycles made it through. Charn's cycle was bringing up the rear. The lightcycle and rider crashed into the heavy girder at top speed. Both were de-rezzed instantly.

 

And that's when they found themselves in a large caldera – round, wide and flat, surrounded on all sides by high cliff walls. Five green-lit lightcycles charged straight at them.

 

“Dead end. Damn it!” Kevin yelled.

 

“Can you do something?”

 

“Not at a hundred miles an hour. I'll need somewhere safe to pull off in order to work.”

 

 

The green Resource Hogs drove like maniacs. “Well lookie here,” a male voice taunted over the two-way. “Looks like we got us some fun!”

 

“You don't know what you're dealing with,” Tron warned. “Stand down or be de-rezzed.”

 

“Guys, is that who it  _sounds_ like?” One of the Hogs was having second thoughts.

 

“Stop being a bit-brain. They wouldn't send -”

 

“Even if they did, this is our sector. Destroy them!”

 

With those words, the chase began, the caldera turning into a lightcycle ring. Four trails of blue-white versus five trails of green.

 

It looked like they would have to take care of these attackers first. Lightcycle sparring was a favorite pasttime, even if it usually didn't have life and death stakes these days. Kevin and Tron looked at each other and nodded. They didn't need coms. Hell, they _met_ on a lightcycle ring.

 

Tron's cycle made rapid turns that few Programs could replicate, drawing out a nasty labyrinth with the contrail of his cycle. Charging the closest one head on, Tron challenged it to what Kevin called “chicken,” each of them facing square on, daring the other to turn first. With barely a pixel to spare, he was the one who curved up and right, the other driver just a picosecond too slow. With a hideous crash and the sound of shattering voxels, they were down one opponent.

 

Kevin's User abilities required a fair amount of concentration to actually pull off - roughly the same amount as writing code, even if the mechanics of the Grid meant that all you'd have to do is think of the calculations in your mind and the code would assemble itself. At lightcycle speed, he was like any other Program. He just had a lot more practice than these clowns and a few modifications he put on his cycle's coding.

 

For example, the ability to make round turns instead of the square ones. He hadn't tested it completely, and planned to roll out the upgrade to all the lightcycles as time permitted. For now, it was a unique feature. Gunning for the cliff walls, he made a fast turn and rode the edge of the wall in a long, graceful arc, looping back behind his shocked opponent. The Hog wasn't very bright. Trying to curve his standard cycle with its right-angle turn limitation and inability to arc across the wall, he ended up a smoking crater on the cliff.

 

Kanna and Herd were holding their own. What Isos lacked in explicit coding and directives, they made up for it in tenacity and the ability to learn new skills rapidly. Riding in parallel, they charged for one of the Hogs, who turned and started charging at Kanna. She made a swift turn left as Herd made a swift turn right, flanking the Hog and leaving him to crash into the contrail from their cycles.

 

Down to a pair of their cycles against four riders, the Hogs realized the odds had turned against them. Some of their fellows started appearing on the cliffs and sniping down with suffusion guns. The weapons shot out a spray of energy pellets that could stun or de-rez an opponent. It wasn't as clean or accurate as a disk hit, and it required high energy expenditure, which is why they weren't practical weapons for most Programs . However, a hit even the lowest setting caused excruciating pain and the guns required minimal skill to operate – a perfect weapon for thugs.

 

One of the shots hit Herd's bike, and the Iso's cycle wobbled and spun out of control. He tucked and dove off his damaged bike just before it hit a wall and de-rezzed Laughing, one of the Hogs changed direction with the intent to run him over, only for her laughter to be cut off along with her head when Tron's disk severed her neck. Herd dived out of the way as the riderless cycle smashed into the wall. Tron paused momentarily to pull Herd onto the back of the lightcycle. They weren't designed for two, but it was better than allowing the Iso to be killed by the last of the Hog cycles or by their weapon shots.

 

Kanna and Kevin had the last one on the run, but he was tricky, laying out patterns and elaborate moves designed to trap his opponents and force them into their own trail. Kanna saw this too late and was trying not to spiral herself into her own trail. Kevin saw the Hog laughing maniacally. This guy was rapidly pissing him off.

 

Tron's cycle wasn't handling as well as it usually did with the extra weight on the back, but he was making up for it by sniping the jerks on the hill and keeping them from firing. Good.

 

Having seen Kevin's arcing stunt before, the Hog was on the lookout for it, trying to force him against the wall and trap him there. What he wasn't expecting was for Kevin to double-back, gun the engine, and find a way to use that “climb the wall” trick to vault over his opponent's contrail.

 

_Lightcycles 3-D. Gotta pitch that one to the game department and watch them freak out._

 

Now, it was his opponent's turn to double-back and try for a suicidal hit. Kevin snapped off his disk and hurled it. Seeing this, the Hog ducked.

 

But Kevin wasn't aiming for his head – not when the tires were a perfectly valid target. The tire smashed, sending the cycle end over end and the Hog crashing to the ground and de-rezzing.

 

It was over – the four of them stood in the caldera, disks armed and no more lightcycle opponents coming.

 

“That can't have been all of them,” Kanna said.

 

“I know,” grumbled Tron. “Stay sharp, everyone. Flynn, can you -”

 

Kevin nodded and dropped to his knees, broadening his senses and sight through the Grid. “C'mon, you little bastards. Where are you hiding?”

 

As soon as he got a reading, he was on his feet. “Everyone, scatter!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sectors away, in the tutorial arena, Jordan was rolling out of the way of the laser shots coming from the probes and training drones.

 

“Keep going!”

 

She was laughing as she flung her disk. Another drone smashed. This was a trip! The rifle ranges and orienteering runs she made at Fort Sherman paled in comparison. And Clu did not hold back – thank God! He would have made a natural boot camp instructor.

 

“Double-time it!” Clu yelled, right on her heels as she vaulted over another pit and fired her disk at the closest training bot. It missed, but the annoying little thing had to sail out of the way so that she could jump.

 

This tutorial area was a large obstacle course like the kind she ran through countless times in the service. Those obstacle courses didn't have annoying as hell little robots raining live fire, though. She dropped, rolled to the base of a wall and fired her disk.

 

Jordan was pleasantly surprised at the reflexes and speed her digital body possessed. She was still in pretty good shape, even if she was stuck behind a desk these days. It took her months to ditch the baby weight, and bed rest was a massive pain in the ass. She put up with it because Sam was worth every backache and bout of morning sickness.

 

Back in action, testing the capacities of her body, the adrenaline rush...This felt awesome.

 

“How about a few water hazards – make them swim for safety,” she taunted Clu. “Unless Kevin didn't throw that in your programming!”

 

“Show me some plans, as we'll talk.”

 

She fired the disk at the last training probe and started to scale the lightrope dangling off the wall. “Tell you what. After my grand tour? I show you about three new layouts for your office.”

 

“Okay, now I see why my User spends so much time away from this place,” Clu said with a laugh, climbing the rope parallel to hers.

 

They reached the top of the simulated building, the end of that phase of the obstacle course. “Three-twenty, according to the readout” Jordan said.

 

“Not bad for a beginner. Actually, it isn't even bad for an experienced opponent,” he commented. “You'd more than qualify for the Games.”

 

“You just saying that to impress the boss's wife?” she said dryly.

 

“No,” Clu said, putting a hand at her mid-back where her disk would normally be. “I say it because it's true. You are a builder...and a fighter.” His voice dropped. “And I wish my User appreciated you a bit more.”

 

Jordan wanted to jump back, but something seemed to freeze her to the spot. She had been feeling neglected lately. There was this double of her husband who was creepy and fascinating all at once. Obviously, there was enough of Kevin in him to make the attraction carry over, but...

 

_You got into this mess because you thought Kevin was the one cheating. And you are speaking to software. Don't break your brain on this train of thought, sweetie._

 

“Thank you,” she murmured, having a moment where she could completely understand her first husband's inability to keep his fly zipped.

 

“I realize you're bundled,” Clu said with just a hint of disappointment. “And I will act accordingly.”

 

“Clu, do you share...anything else with him?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“More than just his face and voice.”

 

“He also gifted me with my spark...at least, that's how the Tower Guardians phrase it. In their philosophy, a piece of a User's soul is given to their Programs, bringing them to life.” He lowered his head. “I have his memories. Up until the point of my creation.”

 

“When were you created?”

 

“User time? Seventeen months ago.”

 

Jordan did the calculations in her head. That was smack in the middle of her second trimester when she had that miscarriage scare. “So, you remember me...through his eyes.”

 

Another heavy nod. “Much of it, I can't process. But yes.”

 

Now, she really didn't know what to do. Step away? Hug him?

 

Fate intervened. Clu staggered back, dropping to his knees and clutching his head.

 

“Clu? What's wrong? What's -?” _Do these guys have medics?_

 

He sucked in a couple deep breaths and looked up. “It's Flynn – Kevin, your counterpart. He's in trouble. Come on! We have to go now.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes meet the Hogs

**Chapter 5**

 

 

Kevin hadn't hurt this much since trying to channel a transit beam. Yeah, it saved their butts at the time, but the sheer amount of pain involved almost made him wish it had been fatal. Top it with a case of cotton mouth and ears ringing like he'd been sitting in front of the amps at a Led Zeppelin concert.

 

“Crap,” he muttered. It was the most coherent thought he could muster. Last thing he remembered was telling everyone to scatter. The stun bomb sailed through the air, and he caught the brunt of it – at least he hoped.

 

Aside from the soft glow of his circuit lines, the small room was dark and featureless, roughly the size of a cheap motel's bathroom. His prison cell at Master Control's Game Grid was better accommodations. His clothing was intact, his disk was missing ( _double crap),_ and some kind of collar was clamped around his neck. He felt it experimentally for unlocking mechanisms and couldn't find any.

 

User abilities were impressive, certainly, but they did require concentration, which was never his long suit. Fixing code to heal Programs, tinkering with his lightcycle settings, or transferring energy was pretty simple. Mimicking telekenesis, spreading out his consciousness across distances, bending the laws of virtual physics, and the rest of that Luke Skywalker shit – those required a degree of focus he was still working on.

 

 _No time like the present._ He settled in cross-legged on the floor of the cell, took a couple deep breaths, and tried desperately to ignore his pounding head.

 

He focused on trying to “see” past the walls of his prison. The headache was not helping. The mental images behind his eyelids flickered and wobbled like a monitor about to blow a tube.

 

“Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen...” The whole meditation thing still new to him, and Sanskrit mantras didn't do jack for him. Numeric sequences made more sense, especially when trying to focus his thoughts on the Grid's inner workings.

 

He could sense the patterns of energy beneath him – a few dozen Resource Hogs and holding cells with an equal number of prisoners. But why keep prisoners? Why not de-rez them outright? He narrowed his focus, looking for a specific energy pattern. He'd done enough traveling with Tron to know his friend's pattern. He scowled and tried to focus in.

 

Only for the whole mental image to pop like a soap bubble. _Damn it! Concentrate!_

 

He sucked in another breath. “Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four...” He was up to seventy-five thousand, twenty-five before the image came back to him.

 

Tron's energy signature was distressingly weak, without enough power to stay conscious, and it was all Kevin could do not to panic at his friend's condition. He was in the same cell as Kanna and Herd, at least, but even the Isos looked drained and weak while the Hogs burned bright with energy.

 

 _It's like they're feeding on their prisoners._ Kevin thought. Good luck to any of these guys dumb enough to try and take a bite out of him. One odd hiccup about the digitized anatomy he had now was the ability to store, channel, and expend at least a hundred times more power than a Program, and the worst effect he had from any of it was the need for a long nap.

 

Which he could sorely use right now. Along with a cold beer and a long, _long_ talk with Jordan. This was rapidly becoming the worst day he'd had to date.

 

Now that he had a general idea of the place's layout, time to break down the door. He rose to his feet, shook off a brand new round of vertigo, and started feeling the walls. Counting in exponents of two, he centered himself enough to see the coding for the door.

 

The underlying structure was spaghetti code, full of redundant arrays and go-to sequences that were knotted back on each other. They must have assembled their camp from junk data. Even their structures were inefficient and more power-draining than they had to be. Kevin puffed out a breath in frustration. This was going to be like trying to untangle decade-old Christmas lights.

 

“Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two...” he muttered again, fighting off a new wave of vertigo as he pulled up the underlying structure of the door in his mind, fiddling with them like a veteran thief with a lockpick.

 

* * *

 

 

The Baron was leader of the Resource Hog gang. He started as a low-level data pusher, trading in warez and false permissions. On Encom's mainframe, he would have been spotted and shut down, but he survived by being too low-level to get Master Control's attention, and then by embedding himself in a set of common music Programs to make the cross over to the Grid.

 

Once he got out to the Grid, he found a wide-open and lawless frontier to work with. That, and the fact the Illustrious Creator was working on removing many of the restrictions Basics had on their directives, opened the portal to both wonders and mischief. The Baron was one who chose the latter. He liked power. He liked being able to soak up large amounts of memory and stretch out. Baron was a very large script now. He was nearly as broad as he was tall, slow moving, but with crushing strength that brought opponents down with a solid hit.

 

It was by that fist that he ruled this gang. They soaked up power and memory, they got stronger. When they got stronger, they could recruit from the ranks of bugged scripts and other minor pusher gangs in the city's outskirts. This sector made a good base of operations and they had it all to themselves until the damn Isos moved in.

 

His assistant Melodia started out as a music Program, singing her tracks in the clubs of the Entertainment Sector, but she craved greater upgrades, greater fame. A few cycles here and singing was forgotten. Power was all that mattered. he still spent her new cache of energy on her appearance - multi-colored hair and sleek armor over her Gridsuit. She had a walk like an Armory Siren; precise and alluring, but her face was scrunched with worry as she walked up to Baron's throne.

 

“Melodia, congratulations on taking out those invaders. We'll make sure they pay dearly for de-rerzzing a few of our own. Take it out of their shell.”

 

She was carrying the disks she confiscated from their prisoners. “Baron, these aren't ordinary prisoners. A pair of them are just common Isos, though the female has a strange energy reading I can't decipher. It's the other pair that is going to be an issue.”

 

“Not Isos?”

 

“No, Boss” she said. “We'd be better off either letting them go or de-rezzing them straight away.”

 

Baron snorted. “What's the panic, Melodia? You're acting like we captured the Creator or something.”

 

Melodia cringed and handed over the disk. “We _did_.”

 

Baron looked it over with amusement. “Really now? Was hoping to get Administrator Clu's attention, but this...Oh, this is even better.”

 

“Are you glitched? He can send us all to the Void! He _will_ send us all to the Void.”

 

Baron snorted. “Quit panicking. You got the drop on 'im, didn't ya? You fit him with a collar?”

 

“Like that'll stop him! Did you hear about what he was able to do against the last gang of Pushers? Knelt on the floor, concentrated for a nano, and I heard it was like a bomb went off! Or about that virus that tried to poison the Sea? One disk, right through his head, and instant de-rez. We. Got. Lucky.”

 

Baron seemed remarkably unruffled by the gravity of the situation. “Stroke of luck, m'dear, means we can negotiate directly with the elusive User and get what we want. Well, 'less it gets Tron's notice.”

 

“That's the _other_ prisoner.” Melodia pinched the bridge of her nose. “We've got a collar on him, and while he was stunned, we put him on the drainer. He's pretty dim at the moment, but we could de-rez -”

 

“Nope,” Baron said. “Tron gets de-rezzed and we lose whatever leverage we have with Creator Flynn. You heard about the Old System, and how many scrapes they've been through together. Besides, I lived through Master Control's reign. If the Users are all that powerful, they've yet to show it in a way that impresses me.”

 

Melodia raised one green eyebrow. “So what do we do?”

 

“Let's see what the great and allegedly powerful Flynn's capable of on his own. He makes a run for it, we'll make sure we threaten Tron or one of the Isos he seems fond of. Under no circumstances, though, will Tron be kept in any shape to fight.”

 

* * *

 

 

On the fourth attempt, the lock's code undid itself and Flynn ducked out of his cell. The maze of the Resource Hog base was like something out of _Zork_ – twisty little passages all alike and pitch dark. Good thing there were no grues about.

 

Holding the mental image of the base's setup in his mind, he went straight for the holding cells. Sensing Tron in that enervated state was Not Good. Those Hogs were racking up reasons for him to evacuate the Isos, then format the whole sector. That wasn't an option from here, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

 

One of the Hogs, a thick-built goon that could play for the Raiders, was standing just around the corner, back to the wall, and just out of regular sight. The only good news about these thugs was that they were a hell of a lot less organized than Sark's mooks. The guy may have been Dillinger on steroids, but he certainly kept discipline among his troops.

 

This might get tricky. _One, two, three, five, seven..._

 

Kevin was not a small man, certainly, but launching himself at the half-hibernating guard didn't do much other than knock the towering lug backward.

 

“Hey, what the -”

 

It knocked them off-balance, but not off their feet. It was too close of quarters to draw the pop-gun, so he settled for trying to grab Kevin. Kevin dodged out of the way, and smashed his elbow into the guy's solar plexus. Sparring in the tutorial areas against Clu and Tron definitely was more practical than most of a real-world gym, and computer nerds in high school and college either learned to fight or dug themselves out of the dumpsters. Kevin dug himself out _once_ , and that was enough.

 

He dropped low and smashed his foot into the guard's knee, dropping him to the floor. Time for the finisher. Seeing the circuit line pattern, Kevin placed his palms square on the critical node on the Hog's chest, pulling energy inward. The first time he did this, it was against an unlucky straggler in Sark's entourage. Like most manifestations of his User abilities that first visit to the digital world, it was visceral, fueled by emotion and instinct. At that time, he had been fueled by anger at Master Control and grief over Ram.

 

This wasn't any different. He knew damn well what a brutal technique this was. However, Tron was in danger, these bloated scripts were hurting innocents, and they tried to kill him. Anger, fear, and the sheer danger of the situation surged through him, and Kevin's circuit lines went from white to the Hog's green as the thug dimmed out and decayed into static.

 

His appearance wasn't changed with the coloration of his circuitry, meaning he wasn't going to blend in with the mooks this time. Screw it. By now, these guys probably figured out who they were dealing with and they were going to find out why pissing off the User was a bad idea.

 

Free prisoners, get Tron, make these scripts sorry they'd ever been compiled. Sounded like a plan to him.

 

* * *

 

 

Kanna and Herd had been shoved into one of the cells on the far end of the block. There were over a dozen cells in this round room. Often there were three prisoners to a cell. They'd been fitted with the thick, uncomfortable collars, too.

 

Despite the lightrope binding his wrists during their forced march, Herd had reached over and squeezed Kanna's hand. Anything said out loud could be used against them, they realized, so the Isos stayed silent. They'd already lost Charn. They couldn't lose each other, too.

 

Kanna squeezed in reply.

 

After untying the ropes, the Hogs shoved them into the cell and raised the forcefield. Across from them, above them, around them were cages full of Isos.

 

“Herd, you recognize them, don't you?”

 

“Our settlement,” he said, rubbing his wrists. “They've been pulling them all here. But none of them so much as looked up when we were marched in.”

 

“Why have they taken prisoners? You'd think -”

 

“Don't say it, Kanna!”

 

“Say what? If all they wanted was to chase us out so that they could take the sector, then this doesn't make sense. There has to be a reason.” Her head dropped, causing her thick, black braid to fall over her shoulder. “The Basics hate us. The Champion _might_ be an exception, and only because of his directives. It was shameful he had to get called in for what we should have handled on our own.”

 

“I'm not going to judge the majority of Basics for the actions of a few,” Herd said. “I'd like to think more of them are like Tron and I'd like to think he _chose_ to help us.”

 

“Tor told me Basics can't choose, that they have their directives and can't surpass those. That's why Isos are different. We have to struggle. We have to choose.”

 

“Look me in the eye and tell me that. Or better – look Tron in the eye and tell him that!” Herd argued. “I saw him look at the damage to our fountain. He pulled me onto his cycle in the middle of a firefight at great risk to himself. Those aren't the act of a script carrying out directives.”

 

Kanna looked out to the cells and the weakened bodies of her fellow Isos. “I don't know what to think anymore, Herd. I went with Tor to the City. It's nothing overt, mostly. But you see it in their eyes. You see the bartender at the clubs serve everyone else a second round before acknowledging you've ordered a first. It's jokes they tell when they think you're out of earshot. It's going to the administration building and getting the runaround until you give up and go home.”

 

Herd said, “And there are places like Arjin where Radia welcomed Basic and Iso alike. It's the fastest growing sector of the Grid. Kanna, our future will not have to struggle as we have.”

 

“Provided our future comes at all,” she said darkly, waving to Herd to be silent as two of the Hogs approached with a limp body propped between their arms, circuit lines so dim they looked close to flickering out. Without ceremony, they deactivated the forcefield and pitched him in. Herd raced to catch him, and eased him to the floor.

 

“Tron? Oh, no,” Herd said, noting the pixelated wounds on Tron's wrists and lower legs. “Kanna, help prop up his head. I'll see if I can -”

 

“I should help.”

 

“No, we don't know what it will do to you. I'll take the risk. I can't do much, but maybe I can stabilize the energy he's got left.”

 

It was the equivalent of cutting one's shirt to make a cellmate's bandages, but Herd had to do something, even a small something, to try and help.

 

* * *

 

 

Light-cycles running in tandem, Clu was ahead of Jordan's cycle by a nose as they rocketed into towards Kappa Sector.

 

“How do you know he's in danger?” Jordan asked.

 

“Neural link. We're still not sure if it's something unique to the two of us or if more Users would have it with their Programs if they came here. Cut through all the Tower Guardian trappings, and it just means I've got part of his life in me and he's got part of my life with him. Something hits one of us and the other is going to feel it.”

 

“More things about Kevin I wish he told me,” she grumbled. “Does that spider sense let you home in on him?”

 

“A general sense. Not much more than that.”

 

“So we could be searching this sector for weeks.”

 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Clu said. “But I am reading a settlement three clicks north of here. We'll pull in there and maybe they'll have some answers.”

 

“Can you sense anything about his condition?” Jordan asked. She felt like she swallowed ice. Sure, she had been angry that Kevin ran off like that, but she didn't want the last conversation she'd ever have with him to be a fight.

 

“Yup – and he's pissed.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He many not have his disk, but he was anything but harmless. Kevin ran through the dark, identical passages. It was easy to get lost in here, and he still needed to find the way to the prisoner bin. He could sense their energy signatures right below his feet, but here was no telling where the elevators or stairs were in this mess.

 

Even most of the signatures he could read were disturbingly faint. What were these jerks doing to the Programs under his care?

 

“C'mon, come on...” He touched a wall, pulling up a mental map. More spaghetti code with dead ends, bugs and traps. This place was amazing in all the bad ways. The best bet for an elevator was going to be two corridors over and turn left.

 

“Freeze!”

 

Of course, getting there might be tricky. Five of them to one of him. Two of them had suffusion rods, and the rest had shock sticks.

 

Didn't matter. He raised one hand, pulling the excess energy he'd absorbed from their unfortunate friend into it.

 

“Don't.” he warned them. “Don't even think about it.”

 

“Baron,” the head thug said into the com on his helmet. “We've cornered the User.”

 

“That was easy,” Baron said. “Subdue him and bring him to me.”

 

Kevin weighed the idea in his head. Hide his cards and face the big boss or whip them out and stick to the original plan?

 

_Let's make 'em work for it._

 

He pushed out his hand, expelling the absorbed energy and knocking the five Hogs off their feet. The closest one was blown away like an extra in a bad Western, skidding through his fellows like they were bowling pins.

 

Kevin started running. Someone must have seen that stunt because now the alarms were going off and instead of small squads, they were sending everything they had.

 

_Well, got their attention._

 

Two corridors down and turn left – there it was! With a burst of adrenaline-powered speed, Kevin raced to the elevator. It wouldn't do him any good with the doors shut, though.

 

 _Two, four, eight, sixteen..._ The good news about User abilities was that it was like playing a game. It took a level or two to get into the flow, but it was easy to maintain once present.

 

The door opened and Kevin dashed inside, willing the door shut just as a dozen suffusion blasts hit it. Once the car was in motion, he allowed himself a moment to lean against the wall and take a deep breath. He'd need whatever focus he could get for what was coming next.

 

The doors opened – but not on the prison level. Flanked by his most elite followers, in a throne massive enough to seat his bulk, sat The Baron himself. Grinning, the giant pushed a button on his arm band. The collar around Kevin's neck sent a disrupting shock through him, dropping him to his knees.

 

“Welcome to Kappa Sector. I'm actually very honored by the fact that my crew has earned the attention of the Creator himself. I'm also delighted to know that the disruptor collar works this well. But if that isn't enough to satisfy you, I also have this..."

 

Barron flicked the joystick on his throne, moving it out of the way and allowing Kevin a view of the back wall. It overlooked some kind of torture chamber, and Kevin shuddered. He thought those devices would _never_ come to his Grid.

 

Master Control's regime made the use of decompiler racks – curved monstrosities of burning circuitry and incredible pain. Kevin had experience with them, certainly. Right after he threw the match with Crom, calling Sark “pissed off” was an understatement. After Sark convinced Master Control to “take the fight out of him,” he had been strapped to one.

 

“ _I wonder if you will die screaming like your little hacking Program did...”_ Master Control had taunted.

 

The rest of the memory wasn't very coherent – just the feeling like he was being taken apart an atom at a time. He couldn't remember if he screamed, cursed, or (worse) begged. After it was over, they dumped him back in his cell, the other conscripts shooting him looks of sympathy. They'd barely allowed him enough time to recover before shoving him into the light-cycle arena, probably hoping that he'd be too weak to put up a good fight. If it weren't for Tron and Ram, and a renewed sense of being mad as hell and itching for payback, he probably would have lost hope.

 

Tron, he told. Clu probably knew. No one else. It still led nights where he was holding Jordan a little tighter than usual.

 

“Found these with other flotsam in the Simulation Sea. Slight tweak of settings and they're really useful for draining energy out of intruders. Isos make even better batteries, as I have enough of them to let a few recover between turns on these darlings. And occasionally, I'll feed on someone nosy enough to poke around my base...”  


On the rack second from the left, two of Baron's thugs were cutting down Shaddox. The dark-skinned architect Program looked with dimmed eyes into nothing, like a broken toy.

 

“Fine, Baron. What do you want?”

 

Baron laughed. “You need to ask, User? I want this sector. Eventually, I think I'd like to have the whole Grid.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Clu and Jordan rode into the settlement, they found it deserted.

 

“There's no sign of life,” Jordan said, coming out of one of the residential buildings. “Granted, I did not do a room by room search, but if someone was here, you'd think they'd have heard me.”

 

“Nothing in the administration building, either, but plenty of evidence of a fight,” Clu said, pointing to scarring on the building, points that were blown out of the side or pixellated. “Useless Isos – they have disks, they probably outnumber whatever Hogs are in the sector. Why didn't they fight back?”

 

“Not everyone's a fighter, Clu,” Jordan said. “Certainly, you wouldn't expect all the Programs to fight in the Games or have combat functions.”

 

“No, but I do expect everyone on this system to have a purpose. And even if only half of them decided to draw their disks, they certainly ought to be able to fight off some bit-headed gang of rogue scripts. Those who can't defend themselves shouldn't _expect_ others to do the fighting for them. Even with Tron and the System Guards, there's a lot of Grid and too few to cover it.”

 

“Then...start recruiting. Use the Games, train some of these 'Isos' you keep talk about. See if some of the other Programs wouldn't mind an upgrade. You want something, you find solutions. You're no fool, Clu, and while I'm no programmer, I've heard Kevin at work enough times to know there are _always_ loopholes, no matter how good the programmer thinks their code is.”

 

Clu puffed out a sigh. “You're proposing long term solutions when we need a short-term one.” He knelt down and touched the ground. “Fortunately, they're insanely wasteful. See these greenish marks? Light-cycle contrails. They normally fade quickly, but they're burning through so much power, they've lit the way back to their base.”

 

“Guess we follow the breadcrumbs then.”

 

He got to his feet. “User phrase. Right.”

 

Jordan pointed to a large, greenish puddle at the far edge the looked like an industrial-sized paint spill. “And it looks like they've got something bigger than light-cycles.”

 

“That looks like a Recognizer trail. Amazing. These guys are on their way to earning my congratulations – a nano before I take their heads off with my disk. It would explain how they managed to transport a small settlement. Come on.”

 

They rezzed up their bikes and started to ride out of the settlement, following the power trails into the twisting valley. Jordan tried to focus on the trail ahead, falling in right behind Clu, but her thoughts were focused on Kevin. She just hoped they were going to swoop in for a quick rescue.

 

Aside from a couple barfights and Basic Training, she had never been in combat – never mind the life or death kind. Hell, they were dismantling the last vestiges of the WAC when she got in. As much as she sought challenges in the sparring ring or the rifle range, it wasn't even close to an honest-to-God firefight.

 

The disk on her back suddenly felt heavy. She had a bad feeling it was about to get a lot of use, and not for “information storage and identification.”

 

A hissing snap pulled her out of those thoughts. A greenish ball of energy narrowly missed her head, and she swerved to avoid it. “Clu, heads up!”

 

“They're sniping at us from the canyon walls. Vary your speed and trail as much as possible. Make it harder for them to hit.”

 

“Easier said than done!” The electronic-sounding snap and hiss of the guns as they dashed though the canyons drowned out everything in her mind.

 

_Damn it – it's like playing that canyon survival level on **Space Paranoids**. Only you actually lose **your** life if you get hit! _

 

There was something about the sound of the guns, though. Something she couldn't quite place. She had no idea why it sounded so familiar.

 

She swerved to dodge one incoming blast, only for a second shot to graze her cycle. It wobbled under her, its path becoming increasingly unstable. That's when their attackers got a bright idea. Firing at an outcropping, huge boulders that looked like jagged hunks of concrete collapsed into their path.

 

“Clu look out!”

 

Clu turned his cycle in a 180 degree turn, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the incoming debris. Unfortunately, it cut off the road ahead.

 

They derezzed their cycles. The only hope they had was going it on foot.

 

They didn't get a chance. The Hog snipers crawled down from the valley. “Baron. Couple of intruders. I think one of them is Administrator Clu, sir!”

 

“Really? Neutralize them and bring them for processing.”

 

Neither Clu nor Jordan could escape the incoming fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Resource Hogs and the Suffusion guns are elements I nicked from Tron 2.0. Some things are just too much fun to leave on the cutting room floor. As for el duderino and his muddling through User-fu, I figured there had to be a learning curve of some kind, and figure they are more or less like Jedi/Sith abilities; there's a "core" set that are pretty commonly used, but many of the finer details depend on the person wielding those powers and the degree/style of coding talent they have.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 

 

Coming back online was anything but pleasant, but it beat the alternative.

 

“He's waking up, Kanna.”

 

“Thank the Creator! Tron, can you hear us? It's Kanna and Herd – from the settlement.”

 

Tron was still very weak. He coughed, tried to sit up, failed, and grumbled a few hexadecimal strings unfit for polite company. “Where are we?”

 

“The prisoner bin for the Resource Hogs,” Herd said. “I...I had to stabilize your energy, Champion. They did something to you.”

 

“They have decompiler racks – torture devices from the Old System. They've modified their function, but...not the pain they dish out.” He looked around. “Where is Flynn?”

 

“He was taken elsewhere, I'm afraid,” Kanna said. “The Baron must have realized what he was and...Certainly, the Baron can't hold him. He's the _Creator._ He can't be -”

 

“He's powerful, certainly, but not invulnerable,” Tron warned. “Even I don't quite understand his limitations or capabilities.”

 

Herd and Kanna looked to each other, worried. If the Creator couldn't help them, then who could? Kanna hung her head in sorrow, and Herd grasped her hand.

 

“You're bundled,” Tron said.

 

Kanna nodded. “Yes, we are. We came out of the Sea on the same cycle. I had just emerged, looking in awe at the world around me, and when I looked backward, I saw a hand reach up from the Sea.”

 

“She pulled me from the Sea,” said Herd. “The first sight of my new world was her face and knowing that I wouldn't be alone in this life. Together, we decided our 'directive' would be to explore this world, to see everything in it. That's why we became scouts.”

 

Again, for all the differences – Program, User, Iso – the similarities were just as striking. He spared a brief thought for Yori as he tried to gather the energy to sit up.

 

The forcefield lowered and two female-designated guards marched in, grabbing Kanna by the arm. “Your turn on the drainer, Iso scum.”

 

“No!” Herd said, standing up and twisting the guard's arm, only for the other guard to jolt him painfully with a shock rod.

 

“If he's so eager, then take him,” the other guard said, rubbing her arm.

 

“I'll go willingly. Just leave Kanna and Tron alone.”

 

The guards looked at each other and shrugged. “For now, why not?”

 

The pair of them started to drag Herd out of the cell. Kanna bolted to her feet, horrified and helpless to stop them.

 

“Kanna, guard our future. No matter what. You will survive with it. And take care of Tron. He'll need your help, too.”

 

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

 

The guards marched Herd out of the prisoner bin and down the long, dark halls.

 

“Your future?” Tron asked, unsure what the reference meant.

 

Kanna hung her head, hiding her face in her thick, dark hair.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Okay, Kevin realized. He was facing the final boss, and The Baron laid it out for him like a Saturday Morning cartoon villain of the day.

 

“Anything's negotiable, Baron. ” he said, adopting the tone of voice he had to use in the boardroom when some shark in a three piece suit thought he was Lee Iacocca.

 

The Baron took that as a statement of surrender. “The sector then? Everything in it?”

 

“Ah, but you want something, you have to give something. Why should I give _you_ the keys to the sector? Assuming I really can. You did manage to overpower me, after all.”

 

“You want your life? You want your pretty world that we Programs can never see? Well, you give me what you want and leave – never come back. I get this system, and you just sod off. Build a new one if you want.”

 

“You're assuming a lot, Baron,” Kevin said neutrally. His concentration was directed elsewhere, on the coding and assembly of the shock collar. Since it seemed to work by disrupting a Program's power signature, it was just as effective against Users (unfortunately). Undoing the locking mechanism would be easier, but too obvious. He needed to disable it. For that, he needed to keep the Baron talking. “So how did you manage to assemble all this under my nose?”

 

“Simple,” The Baron said, glad got the chance to monologue. “Recruit from the scripts who want more power. This place is wild, un-formatted, even by you. Spend a few cycles gathering power, building a base of operations, far enough outside the City and its System Guards, but not too far...”

 

Adding appropriate “uh-huhs” and “I sees” to the otherwise one-sided conversation, Kevin latched onto the structure of the collar's disruptor mechanism. Almost there...

 

“So, we're armed, and we're ready, and if we have you, then...” The Baron might have shrugged, but with shoulders like that, it was hard to tell. “Well, I don't think you're all that powerful. Little better than an Iso, really.”

 

“Really?” he said. “Well, Mr. Baron, you're still being very steep in your demands and not giving a lot of reasons for me to follow them. What if I like the system? What if I'm already planning to stay here?”

 

The Baron scowled, his massive bulk pulling itself out of the chair and staking over. “You're stalling, User.”

 

“So what if I am? What makes you think I'd leave the sector in your hands? Once I'm out, I could reformat your whole sector. Hell, the whole Grid!”

 

The Baron pulled Kevin up by the neck. “You could, but you'd kill dozens of your precious Isos. You'd kill Tron. Even the most rudimentary Sector Guard is willing to de-rez himself for the cause, per his directive. However, their directives get a little hazy when the lives of non-combatants are involved. So, where is _your_ directive focused, Flynn?”

 

Fuck. Programs needed to breathe to keep from overheating, but they could go without air for longer than a User could, and the Baron's grip had cut off his airway! He struggled, tried to think of code, but instinct and fear were taking over. Just as he thought he was going to black out...

 

“Baron!”

 

A contingent of guards marched in the room with two prisoners, both slumped over. The Baron all but tossed Kevin to the side, where he landed ungracefully to the floor, sucking in sweet air and trying to figure out his next move.

 

“Two more prisoners.”  


The pair of goons blocking his view stepped aside, and if Kevin didn't think his situation was perilous enough, it just got worse. They were holding Clu and Jordan.

 

* * *

 

 

Jordan was getting a fast education in the politics, setup, and danger level of the digital world. She also was starting to agree with Kevin about how utterly strange and unexplainable this place was. Not to mention how utterly freaking _dangerous_. The horrible pounding in her head echoed through the places on her body marked with circuitry.

 

Her father didn't talk about Korea or World War II, aside from acknowledging he served in both and saw action. Her grandfather didn't talk about either World War. Both of them got _looks_ on their faces when certain questions were posed, looks any military brat knew to mean _“shut up and don't bother Daddy.”_

 

She had come in just on the tail end of seeing her husband being choked by this...thing that looked human enough, but wouldn't be able to move in the real world for all his bulk, tossing him aside once the guards came into the room with her and Clu. Clu looked disturbingly like a broken doll – eyes open and completely blank, circuit lines a dull white, slumped over like a puppet with its strings cut.

 

She glanced at Kevin, who was rubbing his neck, asking silently if he was okay, which he acknowledged with a single nod. Thank goodness he was alive, and relatively fine!

 

The head of the brute squad handed the Baron their disks. “The female recovered from the suffusion blast sooner than we anticipated, Baron. We can't seem to analyze the disk, either. Her energy pattern almost reads like an Iso's, but she's not marked like one.” To emphasize the point, the guard holding her left arm twisted it so The Baron could look at her bicep.

 

The Baron put Clu's disk aside. “That, I'll want to keep.” He looked squarely at Jordan. “Well, now. What to do with you? State your directive, Program.”

 

In the Army, they taught you that, should you become a prisoner of war, the only thing required to give one's questioners was name, rank, service number, and date of birth. Somehow, Jordan doubted that any of those analog-world procedures would work here.

 

So, she decided on the other course of action – lying through her teeth.

 

“I am an experimental security Program, assigned as honor guard and assistant to Administrator Clu,” she answered in what she hoped was her best cross of computer and newly-minted Private.

 

“She's...new to the system Baron. I brought her myself,” Kevin elaborated.

 

“Experimental?” The Baron said. “Interesting.”

 

“Well, it's not like I'd leave him without an escort,” Kevin elaborated, gesturing to his unconscious double.

 

“Not like it did you all any good,” The Baron said. “Tell you what. I'll let you and the pretty one share a cell. Meanwhile, for every full minute you refuse my demand, I drain one of my prisoners to de-rez. One of the Isos first, and then the esteemed Administrator.” He nodded to the guards to take Kevin and Jordan out of the room.

 

As soon as they left, The Baron turned to his lieutenant. “Melodia, de-rez both the Iso and Clu. That experimental security Program of his will go after them.” He tossed her a control device. “That's for the collars. They make another escape attempt, hit the green button. That'll blow their heads off.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 

 

The guards marched them to the same tiny cell he had been imprisoned in earlier, sealing the door shut. As soon as they were alone, he dropped the pretense and pulled Jordan to him, holding her like the world was about to end. She was also clinging to him for dear life.

 

“No listening devices,” he informed her. “I checked during my last scan of the room.”

 

She let out a breath and stepped back, but still didn't let go of him just yet. “Is your system _always_ this dangerous?”

 

“Not usually. I haven't been in it this deep since Master Control,” he admitted. “That was actually worse, though.”

 

“I shudder to think of how,” Jordan said.

 

“Back then, I didn't have any idea what I was doing. Now, I have _half_ an idea of what I'm doing.” Kevin put his hands on the collar around Jordan's neck. “Give me a second.”

 

She sighed. “He's going to start killing prisoners. One for every minute.”

 

“Meaning about one per hour in Grid-time. Not like that guy's going to keep his word.” Kevin took his hands off her neck and took her shoulders. “Jordan, I'm sorry. I wanted to show you this world, but not like this. Not when it's not finished. Not when it's still dangerous. I was an idiot and didn't want you thinking I was crazy or worrying about me, or...”

 

She cupped his face. “Kevin, you _are_ crazy, and that's part of why I fell for you.”

 

Breaking the embrace, he felt for the door. “I can break us out of here, but there's going to be a lot of them and two of us. I let The Baron get me the last time because I gambled that either I could talk him out of it, or he'd be dumb enough to confess the whole plan. I was right on the latter.”

 

“And you almost got choked to death,” Jordan pointed out.

 

“Every life on this Grid – every Program, every Iso – they're my responsibility. They revere the Users, and I'm the only one they've seen until now. I'm nowhere _near_ as wise or good as they think I am, but I'm what they've got. If that means putting my life on the line...”

 

Jordan tried to process this new piece of information in light of all she had seen and heard so far. To stand between danger and the beloved home was, to paraphrase Heinlein, the goal of a soldier. When she met Kevin over a game of _Matrix Blaster_ at his arcade, she had been glad for the fact that he wasn't the macho, swaggering GI she had seen one too many times in the service (and her ex-husband certainly fit that mold). She thought he was just a big kid with a talent for business and computers, someone whose chaotic and carefree nature balanced out her hardass tendencies.

 

Seeing the Grid and learning what he was willing to do to protect those living in it certainly showed a side to him that she hadn't bet on, but it was a side Jordan could respect; aspects of duty and courage, the strength of a soldier without the baggage that term usually carried.

 

“What are these 'Isos' anyway? Clu refers to them as 'rogue scripts,' which I don't imagine is a compliment.”

 

“That's Clu for you. My best and worst traits, but zero imagination when it comes down to it. I needed matter to build the Grid, Jordan. I also was trying to get the laser's mechanisms right. Master Control zapped me in, so my pattern was in the system, but when the MCP got taken down, my pattern was the only one stored. I was the only one who could get in or out.” He explained as his eyes closed, working the invisible lock. “I was throwing everything from roadkill to the contents of the dumpster out back into the thing. Add junk data and half-deleted files from Encom's system, and you have the Simulation Sea.”

 

“Then how did I get in?”

 

“Thank the Isos for it. I set a few of them to work trying to find a way to allow a second User in here with me. If they hadn't been there to crunch the numbers...” His voice trailed off. “My last attempt to figure out the calculations, I tested with a dead rat – turned into goop the instant it hit cyberspace.”

 

Jordan winced.

 

He looked over his shoulder. “As for the Isos themselves, I don't know how the hell it happened. They crawled out of the Sea – like magic. I think some of the trash I was zapping in had enough human DNA to replicate itself. Mix that with the garbled computer code, and...”

 

“They're human?”

 

“Not quite. They have human DNA, but it's mixed with computer code. They're an _entirely new_ species. Even if I tried to replicate the experiments I've done here on another system, it's pretty likely I won't be able to replicate the result. And User of Users knows what that idiot Baron is going to do.”

 

She blinked in disbelief. “I'd ask you if you were kidding, but I know that you're being entirely straight with me.”

 

“We're kinda in over our heads, but we _are_ going to get ourselves out. And no matter what...”

 

The kiss was hard, fast and desperate. They didn't have a lot of time, and things were about to get very dangerous.

 

“Jesus, Flynn, the day you stop surprising me...” she breathed. After a pause, she smiled. “I love you, too.”

 

“Yeah, well, it's time we surprise The Baron. I can sense two guards on the other side of the door. Ready?”

 

Jordan took position on the other side of the portal and nodded.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Clu rebooted, he found himself in a small cell with another figure. He recognized his cellmate as Shaddox, the architect Program whose disappearance started this whole mess. If his purpose to the Resource Hogs was bait to lure them in, it worked. If he served his purpose, though, wouldn't they have just de-rezzed him?

 

He didn't have all of his creator's abilities, but he had a fair amount, including a greater-than-normal energy reserve. Shaddox might be partly to blame for this mess, but Clu needed answers and he wasn't going to get them if the architect de-rezzed on him. This was going to be tricky without their disks, but it was worth a try. Finding the power node on Shaddox's chest, Clu reached into himself and started pushing energy to the unconscious Program.

 

He'd managed to start the transfer when the door opened and the guards tossed in an Iso male. He didn't look like much – none of the Isos did to him. They were all wide-eyed stares and incessant queries with no focus or _use_.

 

“Administrator?” he asked.

 

“Yes. State your designation, Iso.”

 

“My name is Herd. Administrator, I can't believe they got you too. They've got our Creator hostage, and Tron is in the lower level cells with my counterpart -”

 

“All the more reason not to waste a nano on irrelevant output. Your kind has regenerating energy reserves, yes? Right now, we're going to need that. My unconscious colleague needs an energy infusion. He's drained enough that it might damage one of us if we went it alone.”

 

“But if we pooled our energy...” Herd glanced between Clu and Shaddox, kneeling on the floor. “Right.”

 

“I'll talk you through it,” Clu said, guiding Herd's hand to the node on Shaddox's chest, and then placing his own hand next to it. “Do _exactly_ as I say.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as the door slid open, the guards marched in the room, ready for a fight. Jordan dropped into her old hand to hand stance from Basic Training. _Never thought I'd actually have to use this. Three cheers for muscle memory and my old gunnery sergeant._ She grabbed the one closer to her by the gun arm and slammed her knee into his gut. The suffusion gun clattered to the floor, unusable in the tight quarters. She followed it up by driving her palm into the underside of his jaw as hard as she could, knocking him back against the wall.

 

Kevin was busy with the larger of the two attackers, though it was only a marginal difference in size. It was a little shocking to see her computer-geek-slash-businessman husband fight, but she had seen enough shocking things today to mentally shrug and keep going. He kept on the offensive, trying to keep it up so that the other guard had no opportunity to hit back.

 

Shoving her back with his greater bulk, the Hog she was fighting made a dive for the gun. Jordan kicked the gun away, sending it clattering against the opposite wall, narrowly able to get out of the way when Kevin's opponent stumbled over his cohort's bulk. She tried to kick the Hog in the throat, but he grabbed her ankle and tried to pull her off balance. The close quarters fighting, though, meant Kevin was close enough to viciously kick the guy right in the small of the back, his heel striking a large node of circuitry.

 

“Aim for the circuits, Jordan! On a Program, they're really sensitive.”

 

Jordan jerked her foot out of the attacker's grip and followed by slamming her heel into the brightly-lit node on the Hog's hip, causing him to howl with pain like she'd just delivered it to a human's groin. “Nice to know!”

 

Kevin's attacker crawled up from the floor and pulled a light-cycle rod from his belt. With a twist, he pulled it apart, and it became a pair of sparking sticks that looked like cattle prods. With an incoherent noise that sounded like a cross of a growl and a scream, he charged.

 

“Kevin, look out!”

 

He turned just in time to avoid getting hit, sending the Hog charging for Jordan. She stepped out of the way, grabbing his wrist with one hand and using the other to gouge at his eyes. One of the rods dropped to the floor, and the other one followed when Jordan delivered a blow to the knee that would have dislocated it on a human. On the Program, it simply shattered like a zapped alien from an arcade game, dropping the Hog helplessly to the floor as he clutched the shattered remains of his leg.

 

Kevin was busy with his own attacker, a tough brute that kept soaking up the punches and kicks. He was breathing hard now, tiring with the effort. “Grab the shock sticks!”

 

She didn't need to be told a second time. Diving down and scooping them up, one in each hand, she lunged for Kevin's attacker and jammed the sticks into a pair of circuit lines on the Hog's back. It twitched uncontrollably, letting out a hideous shriek as it convulsed briefly before blowing apart in a cascade of voxels that quickly faded out of existence.

 

The remaining Hog on the floor was crawling for the gun. No sooner had he grabbed it than Kevin kicked it out of his hands. Dropping to the floor, Jordan watched as Kevin hissed and did something with his hands, like he was sucking up energy through his arms. She watched as the circuit lines on his clothes bled out the white and became the same color green as the Hog's for a moment before the Hog himself twitched and faded out, decaying into nothing.

 

It was just them in the cell. Kevin shuddered. “I hate having to do that. And contrary to what you probably heard, I've found it _doesn't_ get easier.”

 

“Sometimes, you don't get a choice,” she pointed out, sealing the sparking halves of the baton and putting it on her hip, where it just hung there, seemingly of its own accord.

 

He nodded and let out a sigh, shaking out his hand. “Get their guns, Jordan.”

 

She picked up the closest suffusion gun. “I thought this looked familiar. Sounded familiar, too.” She handed it to Kevin before getting the other one.

 

“How so?” he asked.

 

“You programmed _Matrix Blaster_ , and you don't recognize your own light gun design?”

 

He looked at it, looked back at her, and started laughing. “I really should have put it together earlier. Come on.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

By now, Kanna was desperate. Herd was not going to de-rez, and they all were not going to be destroyed in this bugged script's lair.

 

The walls of their prison were not smooth or finished, evidence that the gang just carved it out of the existing cliffs or were lazy enough just to throw a few forcefields and firewalls around existing tunnels. While searching the walls frantically for a weakness, she dislodged a fist-sized hunk of virtual stone. She hacked at the wall until the stone fell apart, clawed at it with her fingers, dislodged another stone, and began chipping away at the wall.

 

“Kanna,” Tron asked. He had been able to sit by propping himself up against the wall, but he was still so low on energy that anything else was doubtful. He watched her fruitlessly chipping away at the walls, and felt a painful helplessness. “What are you doing? The walls are too thick.”

 

“I can't do nothing. I...have to...” She continued to hack away at the walls.

 

“Spending your energy needlessly won't help him. Think,” he cautioned her.

 

“My counterpart is out there. The Baron will destroy him. I refuse to sit and wait.”

 

“Kanna, I know what it is to be afraid for the one you love. I need you to be ready to fight, especially since I'm so drained, I can't.”

 

She turned around, rock in hand. “Is it just a directive to you?”

 

“I don't understand, Kanna,” he said.

 

“You say you fight for all of the Grid's citizens, but are you just saying that because you believe it or because Creator Flynn hard-wired it into your code?” Her voice was ragged and tinged with pain and exhaustion. “Because if it wasn't, why would any Basic fight for an Iso's life?”

 

The question took him by surprise. Programs took for granted what their directives were and what it meant. “Flynn had nothing to do with my directive. It was given to me by Alan-1, back on the Old System. That directive is to protect the System from threats from without and safeguard it from threats within. It's true I can't break that. I don't _want_ to. But any Program has a large degree of choice over the focus of their directive – _how_ we carry it out. Don't let fear and ignorance poison you, Kanna – not theirs and not your own.”

 

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...” she said.

 

Tron couldn't offer a hand or a brush of comforting energy, but he could offer his story. “I also know what it's like to be feared or whispered about, to be treated poorly for something intrinsic to you. Master Control was like The Baron, only a hundred times worse. Those who believed in the Users were hunted down, re-purposed, or sent to die on the Game Grid. I did have a choice, Kanna. Master Control told me I could defend him, fight for _his_ system.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I _didn't_ choose him. I chose faith. I chose to hope. In the end, it worked.”

 

Kanna's hand clenched around the rock. “Then let's both hope.” A couple more whacks at the wall, and a familiar, surprising substance drizzled on her fingers. “Champion, I don't believe this!” She enlarged the crack with the stone until a thin, but steady stream dribbled out from the rock and into her cupped fingers. Once she had as much as she could carry in her cupped hands, she carefully knelt at his side.

 

“Energy. Yes!”

 

He took a gulp, feeling his strength return, enough to stand. “We won't have much time before the guards come back. Come on – we'll drink as much as we can. I have an idea.”

 

* * *

  


Shaddox sputtered awake.

 

“Don't try to sit up too quickly,” Herd said, steadying the architect Program's shoulders.

 

“We don't have time for niceties,” Clu said.

 

“Administrator? What in the Void -” Shaddox tried to ask.

 

“Told you. No time.”

 

“Oh, glitch it. I was trying to get out of the sector when those Hogs overtook my cycle. They had me on the rack, and next thing I know -”

 

“Shaddox, there's something here they want. Otherwise, they wouldn't be hassling some one-bit Iso settlement or try to get everyone's attention. What is it?”

 

“It's the whole sector. Kappa Sector has the richest energy lines I've seen on the Grid,” Shaddox explained. “This base is built over an entire under-surface power pool. Biggest I've ever seen. That's not counting the huge tributaries and springs that are in the immediate area.”

 

“Then why the draining racks?” Herd asked.

 

“Seems the Baron can drain any Program or Iso dry. Whatever energy gets fed through those racks gets fed directly to him. The more energy he absorbs, the bigger he gets. Programs join or get fed to it. Isos he treats like batteries.”

 

“What would happen if he fed a User to it?”

 

Shaddox shook his head with disbelief. “Flynn didn't.”

 

“Trouble attracts him like gridbugs to bad sectors,” Clu said. “And now there's a second one...”

 

Shaddox was about to ask when four more Hogs came in. The leader pressed the activator on the control rod, sending painful jolts through all of them. Unable to fight back, they were quickly rounded up and marched to towards the array of racks.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 

 

 _Matrix Blaster_ was the lesser-known “sister” of _Space Paranoids_. It marked a dramatic departure from the top-down format common to games of the era, featuring primitively-rendered 3-D corridors and a “duck/reload” function. The game also kept track of accuracy and used those scores to dial up or down the game's difficulty as well as offer the chance for cooperative gameplay. Other games had the primitive start of one of two of these features, but _Matrix Blaster_ integrated them all to create far and away the most sophisticated shooter on the market.

 

The first one hit the arcades the day Jordan Canas's divorce papers were filed. Hip deep in college paperwork, sleeping in someone's garage with little more than the contents of her old footlocker to her name, and getting hassled by her ex-husband's lawyer, she desperately needed a goddamn rifle range. She lost track of how many quarters she poured into the machine at the laundromat and really didn't care. When her usual machine was broken and she was desperate for her fix (finals week, and the ex had just shacked up with another floozy), she walked into an arcade named Flynn's with a mission, plunked in a quarter and got the top score, leaving a half-dozen slack-jawed bystanders.

 

She didn't know at the time _whose_ score she beat.

 

Rifle in hand, stalking down the stark, featureless corridors, Jordan steeled herself. All or nothing, one life, no continues, and a horde of very real enemies with live ammo.

 

Shots whizzed past her. Blanking out all thoughts other than the task at hand, she fired back, her targets shattered into piles of gleaming and dying cubes with every hit. She didn't dare spare a glance over to Kevin. If she did, it might distract her from what she needed to do, which was clear the area and get the hell out of there.

 

* * *

 

 

When the guards came back to Tron and Kanna's cell, they saw her with her back to them, her body partly hiding their view of the Grid's champion as if in mourning.

 

The larger of the two grabbed her violently. “Come on, Iso. Your turn.”

 

As soon as she was on her feet, her foot slammed into the circuit line on the guard's foot, and her elbow slammed into the guy's gut. His partner tried to pull her off him.

 

Ignoring the very awake and _pissed-off_ security Program who was on his feet. He may not have been at full strength, but he didn't need to be. He fought his way through many of Sark's thugs on less power.

 

With User-kind, there are many issues and philosophical debates over the taking of lives and under what circumstances it is acceptable. There are debates about violence, acceptable and excessive force, and the rules of war. To Tron, there is little philosophy and no debate. They are _threat_ \- threat to him, threat to System, threat to Iso, threat to User. Where a User or Iso has a picosecond's hesitation before delivering lethal force, he does not. His directive – defend the System from _threat_ \- is as much part of him as shell and spark. During combat, all matters unrelated to directive are forgotten.

 

The one behind him, he knocked backward with a spinning kick, followed by a vicious flurry of blows to the one at his front, trapping him against the wall and giving no quarter. It was over quickly as Tron smashed his fist into the other Program's throat with full force, shattering him like glass. He turned to face the other opponent only to hear the sound of a suffusion gun.

 

Kanna held the gun at firing position with the other guard reduced to fading voxels on the floor. She searched among the flickering pile for what she needed. “I've got his control rod and permissions,” she said, handing it to Tron. “Looks like we can open every cell on this floor.”

 

“Good..” He nodded to the suffusion rifle. “Do not hesitate to use that if we are under attack.”

 

Kanna nodded. “I understand.”

 

“We'll get Herd out,” he said. “First, however, we free the rest of your people and find out where they've taken our disks.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Baron himself was waiting for them, watching them from his throne room overlooking the torture chamber. There were only two racks in this particular one, no doubt one of several that surrounded the throne room. His eyes centered on Clu's, and he grinned greedily, holding up two disks, nearly-identical, right down to the pair of faces on the identity display.

 

“Seems there'll be an opening for a new Administrator soon,” The Baron said. “The User's not complying, so I'll burn them all and make him watch until he begs.”

 

“He'll never surrender to you, Baron,” Clu said.

 

“And how would you know, hm? Do you really know your User as well as you think you do?”

 

“I know because as soon as I'm free, I'll de-rez you myself,” Clu said defiantly. “And compared to Flynn, I can be downright _patient_.”

 

“A lot of bold talk for a script about to become obsolete. Guards!” The Baron said.

 

As soon as Clu got a look at those racks, something deep and profoundly terrifying jolted through every circuit on his shell. Something in him knew about these, and not just from the junk data of his creator's memories. That part knew the pain, the feeling of being dissolved pixel by pixel. He was so struck by the terror that all his bravado drained right out of him.

 

“Start with the Administrator first – bleed 'em dry!”

  
Clu struggled, he twisted and thrashed wildly in the Hogs' grips, cursing at them in hex code, ASCII, and even a few of Kevin Flynn's more colorful User expressions.

 

In the end, it didn't matter. They chained him on the rack next to the Iso. Herd was stoically looking into the distance as though he could see the Void. “Don't act so glitching brave, Iso. This will break you, too.”

 

“I know, but I'll do this for Kanna. I'll do this for our future,” Herd said.

 

Clu didn't get the time to snarl a snappy remark because that's when the switch was thrown and the world dissolved into indescribable agony.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Racing down the halls, Tron and Kanna opened cell doors and shouted to the trapped Isos to free their fellows or carry those who could not stand. Resource Hogs who tried to challenge them fell to Kanna's gun or Tron's prodigious fighting programming, or fled in terror at the sight of overwhelming number of their former prisoners.

 

The Isos were not programmed with the directive to defend, but they picked up techniques and ideas with alarming swiftness, grabbing hunks of stone, fallen weapons, and improvising crude rods and cudgels from junk debris. As they did, the fight moved from the prisoner bin on the fourth level and spilled out into the third floor with their training arenas and storage bays. The third level was also where the Hogs had their recreation areas and quarters. Many were caught off-guard as the riot took them by surprise.

 

Alarms sounded, lights flashed, the whole complex had degraded into chaos. One of the Isos, a smallish male with cobalt-blue hair used the opportunity to access a map.

 

“Tron, Neric has found our disks!”

 

He jogged over to the terminal. “Good. Where are they?”

 

Neric looked up. “It's on the floor above. The Baron has a trophy room, full of traps. It's also...” He shuddered. “You will have to bypass the drainer racks.”  


“That's where they have taken Herd, then!”

 

“Kanna, please be careful,” Neric asked. “We can secure this level and the way out, but we don't have enough people to do that and go up there to take on the Baron directly. One or two can go up and disable the traps while another group grabs our disks.”

 

“You'll come with me, Kanna?”

 

She nodded. “Until the end, Champion.”

 

“Kanna, you needn't use my title, especially given the circumstances.”

 

She looked a little stunned to hear that, but it seemed Iso nature to adapt with an alacrity that put even Users to shame. Kanna readied her light-gun. “Lead the way, Tron. I will follow.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

On the other side of the third level, the scattered Hogs seemed to be running right into the path of Kevin and Jordan's shots. Instead of attacking in groups, they ran and fired erratically, making it hard to predict enemy movement or return fire. It also made it hard to dodge.

 

“Jordan, over on the far end – make a run for the lift. I'll be right behind you!”

 

She didn't need to be told a second time. Laying down cover fire, she made a break for the lift and jammed the button, starting the short but agonizing wait for the doors.

 

Kevin was running fast to try and catch up, not laying down fire, just running. As soon as he got to the door, he spun around. “Keep covering me.”

 

He bowed his head and touched the wall. Jordan saw him muttering what looked like some incantation, but clearly heard, “One, three, five, seven...”

 

The shockwave of light was so bright it would have blinded her on the other side. A wall of white light cut off the hallway in front of them, and the one to the right, leaving only a single point to defend.

 

“Keep firing. I'll need to concentrate.”

 

 _Nice trick. Wonder if I could learn that one,_ she thought as she shot down two more Hogs before the lift doors opened. She all but pulled him into the lift, the doors sealing shut behind them.

 

As the lift began to move, Kevin's legs buckled out from under him and he dropped to the floor with a groan. Dropping by his side, she turned him over to check for injury. His face was ashen, and he was clutching his chest.

 

“Kevin? Kevin, are you injured? Can you hear me?”

 

“Jordan...it's Clu. He's dying.”

 

Jordan remembered what happened when she was on the Game Grid with Clu, and Clu's mentioning of a “neural link.” “What...Kevin, if one of you dies...?”

 

He didn't have to say anything – just nod.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 

 

Kanna was only a half-step behind Tron when they emerged from the elevator. The gang, never more than a group of thugs united by a thirst for energy, could not make an organized counterattack, sometimes fighting each other in the hallways or fleeing like startled bits in the face of a Recognizer.

 

As the suffusion gun ran directly off one's energy supply, Kanna had to be careful with her shots. Somehow, she had a greater energy reserve than she really should have. By now, the effort of firing the gun should have tired her out. She told herself that her fear for Herd drove her, forcing her to reach even deeper within for the strength she needed. Yet, she knew it wasn't entirely true.

 

The floor seemed to vibrate as they charged ahead, heading to where the disk storage room.

 

“There!” Kanna shouted, pointing to a large room with clear walls stacked high with libraries of disks. She took one step forward and the floor shook again. It was only by the grace of Tron's inhuman reaction time that she did not pitch forward in to the gaping pit of energy and certain de-rez below.

 

He pulled her back by the wrist. “The energy bridge must have a sensor on it. Without the right permissions, it deactivates.”

 

“How do we get across? I don't even see a way to - .”

 

A barrage of shots rang out, and Tron barely managed to dodge them pulling Kanna out of the way, ducking into a narrow alcove behind a stack of data blocks.

 

Tron looked up and saw the source of the attack – Finder drones. These were simple utilities, tube-shaped and the size of a Program's leg. They were often deployed in secure archives or in restricted sectors. Some of them were used as trainers on the Game Grid, integrated into obstacle courses. If someone without authorization walked into a room with a Finder, the slightest movement would trigger it, sending out debilitating and potentially lethal energy shocks.

 

The Baron had a half-dozen crisscrossing the gap. Out of habit, Tron reached backwards to draw his absent disk.

 

Damn it.

 

“Kanna, stay _perfectly_ still,” he warned. “Your future depends on it.”

 

Tron analyzed the Finders' patrol pattern. He would have to time this flawlessly, or he would fall to his destruction.

 

Three... _For the Isos._

 

Two... _For the Programs._

 

One! _For the Users!_

 

Racing out from his hiding place, he focused his remaining energy on his speed and agility. Diving and dodging between blasts, he scrambled up the data blocks like a makeshift staircase, stepped backwards to the edge, and made a running leap.

 

His hands clasped around the Finder that passed by. Swinging his body, he used the momentum to vault on top of the drone. A picosecond later and he would have been struck on both sides by incoming fire. The finder itself was barely large enough to balance both feet, but he waited, balanced, and jumped, grasping the second, repeating the sequence.

 

The third flew lower. He sprang off, did a flip in the air, hit the fourth with both hands and used it like a trapeze to swing to the fifth, crossfire passing over his stomach and under the small of his back.

 

He crouched as much as he dared on the fifth, the movement causing the third and sixth to lock on his position. He made one more leap just as the two Finders vaporized the one he stood on. He grasped onto the sixth and let it carry him over the gap, dropping down by the bridge controls. He slammed the panel, shorting it out, and the bridge was forced into the on position.

 

“Kanna, now!”

 

She ran at full speed across the bridge, running the gauntlet of blaster fire as she and Tron accessed the disk room.

 

“There must be a hundred of them here!” Kanna said with dismay.

 

Tron walked up to a disk on the far wall, and pulled it down, caressing it like the old friend it was. “Maybe so, but I'd recognize my own anywhere.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they reached the second floor, Kevin's condition had deteriorated significantly, and he was leaning on her.

 

“Jordan...over there.” His voice and breathing were distressingly ragged as he pointed to the doorway of what looked to be a storage closet.

 

She pulled him inside, and he waved his hand, sealing the door.

 

“Kevin, you've got to -”

 

He pulled away from her and slid to the floor, sitting against the wall. “He's not far..”

 

“Neural link. What were you thinking?!” she blurted out.

 

“It wasn't intentional ...just _is_. A lot of things here...are like that.”

 

 _A piece of a User's soul is given to their Programs, bringing them to life...We're still not sure if it's something unique to the two of us...I've got part of his life in me and he's got part of my life with him._ That was how Clu phrased it. Okay. More philosophy than she was comfortable with, but there wasn't much choice but to accept “what is.”

 

“Kevin, I'm not a programmer. I can't rewrite reality like you can. Give me an office building to plan or a rifle to shoot – those I understand.”

 

“You are still a User, Jordan. Remember that. The Baron doesn't know what you are, either.”

 

The only chance she had of saving her husband was to save Clu, and since Kevin was in no shape to keep fighting...”Stay here. Do whatever you can with those magic tricks of yours, but stay safe. I'm going after Clu.”

 

She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, readied her rifle and charged.

 

* * *

 

 

Things were not going well for The Baron. His forces were in disarray, the User was loose, the Iso prisoners were rioting. Alarms screamed and warning lights flashed. He still had one last subroutine to run, however. His throne folded away into the floor, he stood on the dais that remained.

 

“Melodia,” he said to his lieutenant. “Turn the input to maximum. I need power – as much as I can absorb.”

 

“What do you plan, Baron?”

 

He pulled two disks from his back – identity displays with identical faces. “Since Flynn and Clu will not comply, I will simply download their functions instead. Why serve the Users when you can become _greater_ than one?”

 

Melodia looked vaguely sick at the notion, her green lines blushing bright purple fear for a picosecond. “Baron...this isn't -”

 

“Silence, or you'll be next on those racks!”

 

“Y...Yes...Baron.” She didn't see a way out, and the Baron had no plans to stop and every plan to kill her for non-compliance. Engaging the transfer and the Baron pulled his disk, sandwiching it between the two stolen ones as the light engulfed him. He hefted it to the vaulted ceiling, awaiting both the power and the upgrade.

 

It may have been his plan of last resort, but if it worked, he would truly be unstoppable.

 

_Download in progress...1%_

_Download in progress...2%_

 

 

* * *

 

 

With his disk back in hand, Tron felt fully back online. The Finders were destroyed in nanoseconds as he dodged their fire and smashed them with well-aimed throws.

 

Kanna had found the controls to an internal communications system and broadcast through the network. “Attention, everyone! The disk room has been breached. Repeat: the disk room has been breached! Everyone, grab your disks.”

 

She ended the dispatch as soon as Tron came back into the room and quickly found Herd's disk hanging amid the rows of Iso prisoners. As she did, she also saw Tron taking down two more disks. Strapping his own to his back, he brought up the identity displays.

 

“Okay, Got Shaddox's disk, but what is _hers_ doing here?”

 

“Whose?”

 

“There's a second User here, and it looks like she's either a captive or...”

 

“A second User?” Kanna wasn't sure she heard that right.

 

“She's Flynn's counterpart. Hopefully, she's causing them trouble.” Tron glanced at Shaddox's disk in his left hand and saw it was flickering ominously. “Come on!”

 

* * *

 

 

A decompiler rack was normally a swift end, but a very painful one. These corrupted modifications were anything but swift, but matched their Old System counterparts in for pain. Two technicians in the room worked the enormous control console. The room itself was semi-circular with a door on each side.

 

The three prisoners on the wall were flickering from white to deep purple, weakening with each Nano as the energy bled from them , flowing into the tubes in the floor and up to The Baron's dais. The viewport was sealed closed because of the download in progress.

 

As if on queue, both of those doors opened. A suffusion blast rang out and struck one as a disk cut the air and sliced the other through his chest. Both shattered into pieces and dissolved away.

 

Seeing the shooter, Tron brought up Shaddox's disk and pulled back his hand, but before he could fire...

 

“Tron, hold your fire!”

 

“Jordan?”

 

“Stop the drainer! Hurry!”

 

He did not need to be told again – User or not. Tron ran over and yanked a lever. The drain halted, but the three figures did not move. All of them looked unhealthily grey, circuit lines flickering a sickly purple.

 

“Herd!” Kanna ran up to her counterpart, cupping his face in her hands. “Herd, please! Can you hear me? Wake up.”

 

Tron grabbed her shoulder. “It's too late. We got here too late...”

 

 

Jordan turned around and rushed for the control panel on the other side of the room. “Maybe not.”

 

Everything about the panel looked like some kind of game controller, and Jordan wasn't even sure where to begin. Damn it! The most promising of the lot looked like some kind of Tower of Hanoi puzzle, and the display read _Power Distribution_.

 

She started to work the dials and saw how the power rings flipped between nodes. Tron ran up to her. “What are you doing?”

 

“This looks like a puzzle Kevin keeps on his desk. I think it controls the energy flow,” she said, pointing to the panels. “If I can get all these rings onto the opposite node, it might change these things from drainers to chargers.”

 

“A beam of energy can always be diverted...” Tron said, as though he heard it from somewhere. “All right, give it a shot. In the meantime, this is yours.”

 

He snapped her disk back into place and a bizarre feeling swept over her. Flashes of information, knowledge, and patterns played across her eyes. She could see the building's layout, the network of power grids beneath her feet shooting throughout the complex. The control panel's dials and panels suddenly made perfect sense.

 

Surreal, yes. Useful – _definitely_!

 

“It's working!” Kanna said. She ran over to the other control panel, and helped work the controls she couldn't reach. “Diverting power now!”

 

The last of the rings fell into place on the opposite node. The room began to shake and the draining racks glowed a hard green.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Once the pain started, he had blacked out, retreating into himself. Pain, he had endured before. The Grid was dangerous and his “magnificent” creator was away from the Grid more than he was on it. He shut down from the terror, the memory in his spark that was and was not from him.

 

_Clu..._

 

In the darkness, he pretended not to hear it.

 

The voice was a little firmer. _Clu...respond._

 

Nope. He was offline and staying that way. Better than coming back and finding himself still on the decompiler rack, being ripped apart a pixel at a time.

 

He had a feeling of being grabbed by the shoulders and an insistent pull. _Clu, this is an order, not a request. Respond!_

 

He came back online with a gasp. “Flynn?”

 

_Yeah, pal. It's me – your User, remember?_

 

“They've got me on this decompiler rack, and it's taking me apart a piece at a time! You are not forcing me to -”

 

_Clu, listen to me. You are not going to die. We're too good looking to die, okay? Now, wake up. I'll need your help. Here's the rest of the plan..._

 

Steeling himself, Clu cracked open his eyes...

 

There was someone standing in front of him, touching his face and chest as if examining him for wounds. It took what remained of his dimming energy to focus his eyes. He could make out blonde hair and an athletic, hourglass figure. She felt his arms, looking for a release mechanism for his bonds. “Hold on, Clu.”

 

Clu found himself thinking that if his input was glitching, he could do much worse than imagining a gorgeous female-designated touching his circuit lines. His self-diagnostics, though, told a different story. His optics focused, and he recognized her. “Jordan? I'm alive?”

 

He was cut down, and all but fell into the arms of his rescuer. Still a little delirious from coming back from the edge of de-rez, he grabbed Jordan and pulled her into a kiss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jordan was too stunned to respond as her brain locked up and did a good imitation of the _Space Paranoids_ kill screen.

 

Her husband's Program was _kissing_ her, capping off the _convoy_ of completely batshit things she had seen and done since getting hit with Kevin's illegal science project. She wanted to shove him away, but her her brain was not sending the necessary signals to her arms.

 

Tron fortunately intervened by grabbing his colleague and pulling him away by the shoulder. “For crying out loud, Clu! She's a User. Show _some_ respect!”

 

Up until that point, Jordan really hadn't seen the resemblance between Tron and Alan, but the look of extreme annoyance and offended dignity on Tron's face was just the proverbial last straw. She cracked up laughing.

 

“Is she broken?” Kanna asked timidly.

 

“I'd say so,” remarked Shaddox.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 

 

_Download in progress...90%_

 

The throne room began to shake and the energizing beam flickered. “Melodia!” shouted The Baron. “What is going on?”

 

“There's been an override on our power systems. I'm...I'm locked out!”

 

“Who's locked us out, some of the glitching Isos?”

 

The door slid open, and a lone figure strode through. Kevin's eyes never left The Baron's, and a suffusion rifle was held at the ready. “This is your last chance, Baron. Stand down.”

 

“Melodia...”

 

“Forget it!” she said. She threw the control rod aside and blasted it, disabling the network of prisoner collars. “I've seen the readouts. He and that 'security Program' we put him with wiped out half of our guards on the second and third levels.”

 

“Coward! Traitor! He's nothing.”

 

“And I'm not stupid.” She threw down her suffusion rod and held up her hands. “Not what I signed on for, Baron.”

 

The Baron sneered and drew a ball of energy into his hand, pitching it at her. She shrieked and ducked...

 

Only for the ball itself to halt in mid-air and curve slightly before smashing harmlessly into the wall.

 

“Get out of here!” Kevin said.

 

Melodia nodded and ran for the door. The Baron made a quick gesture with his hand and fired again. Kevin couldn't react fast enough. She was levitated two meters off the ground, clawing at the air and struggling as if being crushed by an invisible hand.

 

The Baron's face twisted into a sneer. “You're quite the disappointment, Melodia. All those pretty things I gave you. All that _power_ , and you repay me with this?”

 

It was obvious he was going to de-rez her, but Kevin was having none of it. Not another death if he could help it – not on his system! He pushed out his own hand and began counting by threes, imagining a giant hand pulling her out of The Baron's grip. The Baron reacted by pushing more energy into his efforts, circuit lines flashing with the effort.

 

“Let. Her. Go.”

 

The Baron sneered and pushed harder, tightening his grip. Melodia's circuits started to flicker and a purple blush washed over her – energy drain and threatened de-rez.

 

Fuck this. He thought of a giant fist smashing it into The Baron's enormous gut. The Baron flinched with the impact, and Melodia was hurled against the wall, slumping to the floor, offline – but alive.

 

Kevin saw it out the corner of his eyes. The large monitor above the console with the readout. _Download in progress...91%_

 

“Missing something, mate?” The Baron taunted, brandishing a pair of disks.

 

Crap – he should have figured that was the real intent behind getting both him and Clu. Deciding the direct approach was best, he brought up the suffusion gun and started firing. While Programs needed large energy stores to keep firing, Users did not have the same limitation. Unfortunately, the blasts seemed to deflect around the energy field The Baron stood in.

 

“My directive is power – as much as possible. I assimilate both your disk and the Administrator's. I get the system even without your approval.” The Baron grinned. “'Course, it doesn't seem like much.”

 

The Baron put both disks in one hand and lifted the other, pulsing rings of green energy surging from the chamber. Kevin hit the deck, but the rings were still powerful enough to give him a mild electric shock. Attacking directly wasn't working, but there was always a way to disable a shield. He looked up and saw his best bet – four glowing nodes circling the top of the chamber. And just like any game, there was a pattern to the rings.

 

 _Four...three...two...one._ He counted a second pass of the energy pulse to be sure. _Four...three...two...one. GO!_

 

He popped up long enough to fire a quick shot, and the first of the nodes shattered. Unfortunately, that just made the whole room shake harder as the power distribution destabilized.

 

_Download in progress...93%_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Clu was in the lead, Jordan only a half step behind. The Iso scouts flanked Shaddox, and Tron brought up the rear, watching for any danger that might sneak up behind them.

 

“Flynn plans to distract the Baron while we evacuate his prisoners,” Clu said. “The most efficient way to deal with this would be to blast it with a few of our Recognizers, but he likes doing things the hard way.”

 

“Your method would de-rez dozens of innocents, Clu,” Tron scolded. “Sometimes the 'efficient' method isn't the right one.”

 

As they ran past a view port, a huge shadow passed by.

 

“What was that?! Kanna asked.

 

“That, little Iso, would be reinforcements. I told the System Guard before we left that if I wasn't back in five nano-cycles, to send out enough firepower to level a city.”

 

“We'll have to find a way to contact them, Clu. We don't want the Users caught in the crossfire,” warned Shaddox.

 

“The I/O node in the disk room was internal-only,” Kanna said. “We'll need one capable of transmitting to an outside channel.”

 

“Third level,” Jordan said. “Kevin and I passed a communications console on our way to the elevators. It's near the hangars.”  


“Any User powers that might help?” Shaddox asked.

 

“I'm not an expert in computers the way my husband is, but I can somehow 'see' the structure of this complex in my head. Other than that? I can shoot, I can fight, and if it travels on land, I can probably drive it.”

 

“Let's hope that's the skillset we need,” Herd said.

 

* * *

 

 

_Download in progress...95%_

 

Trying to stand in here was like trying to walk on a carnival ride. Three nodes were down, and Kevin took aim at the fourth. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite fast enough to dodge the energy pulse, and it slammedinto him at full force, knocking him to the ground. His muscles tightened and twitched painfully.

 

By some bizarre stroke of luck, his hands just clamped tighter around the suffusion gun. The best he could do was fire blindly. He missed the power node by a country mile, but one of his blind shots struck the control console on the far wall.

 

_Download interrupted._

 

“You bloody...” The Baron's circuit lines blushed fire-red. At least the pulses stopped, but now The Baron was back to hurling bolts of pure power. His abused body screaming with pain, Kevin managed to dodge the first two, but he knew he couldn't keep it up forever. A quick glance at the smoking console gave him an idea. He made a run for it, keeping his eye on The Baron's hands as he summoned another digital fireball to hurl.

 

 _One...sixteen...twenty-seven...sixteen...five!_ It wasn't the most graceful dodge; falling to the floor was only half-deliberate, but The Baron's anger got the better of him and the console was a smoking ruin.

 

The shield was still up, but the energy supply was cut and there was no way to recover the download.

 

“User or not, you'll die for that!” The Baron roared.

 

Kevin was able to divert The Baron's next blast harmlessly into the closed viewport, causing the shield to shatter and the virtual glass to break., but unless he was able to shatter that last shield generator and then get The Baron to drain much of that energy he'd spent cycles absorbing without getting killed in the process...

 

 _Only solutions..._ He couldn't afford to think of “if.” Not if he wanted to stay alive long enough for Jordan and the others to get out alive.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The floors were vibrating, the alarms were going off, and the hallways were scarily empty as they all made their way to the hangar. The hangar itself was vast and mostly empty.

 

“Looks like they took what they could – every Program for himself,” Tron said, looking around the bay.

 

“Not everything – look!” Herd pointed to the large shadow in the back corner. The Resource Hogs' stolen Recognizer sat, powered-down and abandoned on the farthest end of the bay. “We might be able to use that as a transport to get everyone out of here.”

 

“The Hogs had the right idea. We can't waste time. Anyone who can escape should do so on their own power. Anyone too slow -”

 

Tron was about to scold Clu again, but Jordan beat him to it.

 

“You may look like Kevin, but you aren't much like him. I know him, and I know his priorities. We get everyone we can on that Recognizer and haul ass.”

 

“You think you can drive one of those?” Clu asked.

 

Kanna interrupted them. “I've got the channel open, Administrator.”

 

Clu strode up to the I/O console and made contact with the System Guard. “Recognizer number 314, this is Administrator Clu. Respond.”

 

Jordan began to have second thoughts when she looked again at the Recognizer. Sure, she had driven almost anything shy of a tank when she was stationed at Fort Sherman, but she had no idea what she just volunteered for. Still, if Kevin couldn't be leading this charge, it was on her.

 

“What is your next command, User?” Herd asked.

 

“Herd, you and Kanna grab your people and get everyone aboard that thing. Shaddox, go in with them.”

 

“All right,” Clu said. “I've told the System Guard to assume formation. They can't get into firing range due to the valley, but they can surround the caldera and block the way out.”

 

“Then it's time for the three of us to give Kevin some backup,” Jordan said. “Move out!”

 

After the party split, Kanna started to open an internal channel to signal the evacuation. Midway through the reconfigure, her circuitry flushed bright blue for a moment and she cringed, as if with pain.

 

“Kanna?” Herd asked. “Are you all right?”

 

“I think I am...” she said. “But with all the energy I've been expending...”

 

“Our future? Is it?” Herd dreaded the prospect.

 

“It's coming...and very soon,” she whispered.

 

* * *

 

 

The final shield generator burst into useless voxels, but Kevin was breathing hard, sweating, hurting all over, and not sure how much longer he could hold out. 

 

Without his protective shield, The Baron no longer needed to stand on his dais. He had expended a great deal of energy, already noticeably thinner than when he started the battle, but still very large and very powerful. His massive bulk moved slowly, but steadily.

 

Raising one hand, he used his power to pick Kevin up in the air like he had with Melodia earlier, suspending him in an invisible, suffocating grip.

 

“You may have stopped the download, User, but I still got a touch of your power. I've got all the energy I can absorb from the network here. You are strong, but I am stronger.  I will shatter you like an errant bit and display your cast-off voxels to the entire Grid!”

 

Kevin kicked air, summoning his will and energy to release the grip, but it was like fighting off the love child of Darth Vader and Baron Harkonnen. The suffusion gun clattered away uselessly.

 

A shot rang out, striking The Baron in the back. It did little more than piss him off further, but the shock caused him to hurl Kevin against the wall. He impacted hard, tasting blood as his ears rang.

 

Melodia was still crawling across the floor, but she had grabbed her gun. She fired twice more, succeeding only in wounding The Baron as energy leaked from holes in his chest. The Baron turned away from Kevin to deal with his traitorous follower. Melodia was already drained from The Baron's earlier attack, her green circuitry dimming. She wouldn't survive another round.

 

Battered, bruised, in so much pain he could barely move, and certain it would be the last thing he would ever do, Kevin reached out and _willed_ the Baron to halt, pulling backward with all he had. The enormous Program growled and clawed like a caged bear.

 

“Melodia, run. I...can't hold him back...for long.”

 

She staggered to her feet and ran out the door, leaving him alone with the beast. With her gone, Kevin let go, trying to brace himself for a last stand, mentally saying farewell to Jordan and Sam, and hoping they'd understand.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Clu was already looking woozy as the three of them ran back to the elevators. Kanna's message had gone out, so they were running counter to the crowd of former Iso prisoners headed for the hangar bay.

 

“He's trying to hold off The Baron, but it's not going well,” Clu admitted.

 

“We'll get there in time,” Tron said firmly, as though no other possibility was to be considered.

 

They looked at the controls. “First floor is locked,” Clu said. “Needs a control rod or -”

 

“Or a User override,” Jordan said, putting her hand on the control and forcing down anything but the strange data that seemed to be dumping itself directly into her brain. The elevator lurched upward in fits and bursts, shaking as it did.

 

They emerged on the top floor. Fortunately, the only thing on that level of any importance was The Baron's throne room. The door opened onto it and Tron's disk flew for The Baron before the doors were fully open. The edge sliced cleanly through The Baron's left arm, midway between elbow and wrist. His severed arm broke apart with a crash as it hit the floor, and the pair of stolen disks with it.

 

Screaming with pain, The Baron turned to the elevator, incoherently swearing in numeric code as he shambled towards them, sticking out his stump as it sparked energy like a snapped light-cycle rod. Clu made a run for it, dodging the lumbering, wounded Program and scooping up his disk and Kevin's. He fired, and the disk only glanced off The Baron, hitting him straight in the back in what should have been a fatal shot.

 

“Clu, get Kevin!” Jordan shouted.

 

Her first three shots nailed The Baron in his chest. Energy leaked out the way blood should have, but it did not seem to phase him. Her fourth shot hit him straight in the head. The effect was like sticking a lit M-80 inside a watermelon, flying pixels everywhere, but the headless body still lurched forward. “The hell?!” she exclaimed.

 

“He's absorbed so much energy that his shell keeps running long after he should be de-rezzed,” Clu said, snapping Kevin's disk back into place. “He's going to blow!”

 

“Clu...” Kevin had to be helped to his feet. “Clu, get everyone else out of here...He'll take the whole -” He didn't get a chance to complete that statement. Tron was on one side, Clu was on the other, half-dragging him to the elevator as Jordan used the stun setting to try and keep the headless body staggering back.

 

“Together, my friend, or not at all,” Tron said firmly.

 

They reached the lift and Jordan pulled back her gun and sealed the doors. No sooner had they engaged the lift than an explosion rocked the complex. Jordan touched the walls, by now used to the odd sensation of input.

 

“Good news – no more Baron or top floor. Bad news – this place is going to literally crash around our ears.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 

The Isos were good at organizing and efficient about moving in a unit. Trying to run was almost impossible without stumbling, but they all moved as fast as they dared. Herd volunteered to lead the evacuation, leaving Kanna and Shaddox to secure the hangar. Waves of black gridsuits and unique patterns of white lines streaked by. Maya and Tor themselves brought up the rear.

 

“That's the last of us accounted for,” Tor said. “We've lost twenty lives to the Hogs that we know of, and the number is likely to increase.”

 

“We mourn our lost and fight for the living, then,” Maya said. “Herd, there are eighty-nine of us, not counting Kanna and yourself...”

 

“Five more, Maya. A Basic named Shaddox, Administrator Clu, Tron, Creator Flynn and...” He had to take a breath, still not quite believing it if he hadn't seen her himself. “Flynn's counterpart.”

 

“A _second_ User?” Maya was astounded.

 

Herd nodded. “Radia's prophesies and Ophelia’s calculations worked.”

 

“And how do you plan to get us all out?” Tor asked. “Make off with the Recognizer they stole?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The floor around them was already shaking, but it lurched ominously, support beams de-rezzing and the ceiling collapsing in right behind them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The lift opened on the third level, and they all stumbled out. Tron was the only one who seemed able to keep his feet and run, despite the earthquake conditions. The rest of the party had to settle for bracing themselves against the wall every few nanoseconds.

 

“Explain to me,” Clu grumbled. “Why we take out the boss and this place decides to go into cascade failure?”

 

“This place was so shoddily put together that it may as well have been made of cardboard.” Jordan answered. “That, and he was sucking up so much power to fight off Kevin that he overloaded the power network.”

 

Kevin was still a little unsteady, but had recovered from _“exhausted, banged up, and wind knocked out of him”_ to _“able to stagger and sorely needing a few Tylenol.”_ He was bracing himself against the wall and trying not to fall behind much. “I burned up a lot of power fighting the guy off. It'll be a while before I can manage anything impressive.”

 

“Like getting us to the escape point?” Tron said, gesturing to a collapsed hallway.

 

“Crap. And no way around. Jordan, your gun. Hand it over. We'll use that to blow a path – provided it doesn't blow us all to hell first.”

 

Jordan found it a little hard to part with her weapon. Still...”Let's hope we don't run into trouble.”

 

With a little concentration, Kevin reconfigured the internal power supply to overload. “Hit the deck!” Pitching the suffusion gun as hard as he could manage, it lodged in the center of the rubble and let off a deafening explosion, opening enough of a path for them to cross through in single file.

 

Finally, they reached the hangars and the massed crowd of Isos, who parted like a vast sea for the Users and their elite Programs. Kanna stood by the Recognizer's sealed boarding hatch. “Thank goodness you're here! They've locked down the Recognizer and none of us can get around the permission requirement.”

 

“I can get around it,” said a female voice as she ran into the room. Melodia no longer had her bright rainbow hair, and her circuit lines barely had a trace of green on them. Her suffusion gun was strapped to her back, and she was clearly drained as she wove her way through the Iso crowd.

 

With the place literally exploding around them, no one was going to waste time arguing or trying to hold her back. Melodia made her way to the front and put her hand on the Recognizer's controls, opening the hatch as the boarding ramp rezzed into being. “Hurry!”

 

The Isos ran aboard in twos and threes, hurried along by the pair of Users, Clu, and Tron. The explosions were coming in greater frequency, and part of the roof collapsed, forcing Tron to race over and pull one of the survivors out of the debris field. Unfortunately, three others were not so lucky.

 

Kanna was among those coming aboard, and she looked visibly ill, her circuit lines flashing and her face pale. Herd's hand was on her back as they made their way into the cargo bay.

 

Tron made a quick sweep of the bay before coming back. “That's all the survivors – come on!”

 

Clu and Jordan ran up first, but Kevin stopped to grab Melodia's wrist. “You're coming, too.”

 

Melodia shook her head as though she didn't quite understand what Kevin was saying, but she decided to obey. The three of them were the last to get aboard the Recognizer.

 

Jordan was already at the control grip with Clu when the three of them arrived. “I take it this is like the economy-size version of _Space Paranoids_?”

 

“You'd be right. Handles the same way.”

 

"Looks like all that laundry money I blew has a use after all," Jordan said sarcastically.

 

“What is she doing here?” Clu said, pointing to Melodia. “Helped us or not, she's still one of those Hogs.”

 

“We can argue this when we're not all in danger. I have enough left to get this thing underway...I hope.” He knelt in the center of the bridge, willing power through the inactive circuits like hot-wiring an old car. The Recognizer lurched into life and lifted off the floor. “OK, engine's cranked. We're good!”

 

“Hold on!” Jordan said, twisting the stick and pushing forward.

 

They cleared the hangar bay on the heels of a belch of virtual flame as the bay caved in. The aftershock sent the Recognizer lurching forward and to the left Jordan swore loudly as she compensated. Behind them, the entire caldera was lit up ominously, the crust of digital land above collapsing into the pool of energy below.

 

“We're not out yet,” Clu warned. “The cascade failure is still running, and valley is going to be even harder to navigate. I'll take the radio and at least tell the System Guards to expect us.”

 

“Creator!” The bridge door opened, and a breathless Iso woman ran in. “Creator, it's Kanna. Something wrong, and we don't know what's happening to her or how to stop it!”

 

The Iso woman stepped aside and Herd guided his counterpart onto the bridge. Her circuit lines alternately brightened and dimmed in a random pattern, and she was almost doubled over with pain. Tron, who wasn't manning one of the Recognizer's battle stations, helped to steer her over to Kevin and guide her to a half-sitting position.

 

“Keep driving, guys,” Kevin yelled over his shoulder. “I've got this.”

 

“I'm sorry, Creator. I didn't want this to happen right now, but...”

 

“It'll be okay, Kanna. Nothing to be sorry about. You're injured?” He gently rolled her to the side to take off her disk and bring up the diagnostic.

 

She shook her head. “Not injured. But I expended a lot of power, and now our future...”

 

“Future?” Kevin asked. “What do you mean by 'future?' The diagnostic came up. Kanna's power readings were frankly _weird,_ and he was trying to make sense of the readouts.

 

“Herd, you and she kept talking about it in our cell. I wasn't able to process what the two of you meant,” Tron admitted. “We _need_ to know. Her life could depend on it.”

 

Herd bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We were...We returned to the Sea, to give thanks for our lives. While we were there, we...experimented, trying out new ways to share our energy with each other. Something incredible happened. Within her shell, a new spark is developing, part hers and part mine – our future.”

 

“She's _pregnant_?!” Kevin blurted out. There was no way in hell he heard that right, but if that were the case, the readings he was getting made a frightening amount of sense. “Herd, give me your disk.”

 

Herd complied, and Kevin stacked them so that the readouts were one on top of each other, blending like a 3-D image. Sure enough, the data clusters and information he was reading matched up. There was a second reading in Kanna's shell, and the form it took inside the disk readout was like the blurry ultrasound pictures he and Jordan stashed away in Sam's baby book.

 

Tron looked up. “I suppose you know what they're talking about, because it still makes no sense to me.”

 

“Programs are rezzed to life fully formed, and I thought the Isos were the same, but looks like they're more like Users than I thought.”

 

The Recognizer shuddered as Jordan glanced off one of the cavern walls. “Sorry, folks. The thing handles like a cargo truck with a bent axle.”

 

“It really sucks in downtown traffic,” Kevin called over his shoulder. “Jordan, we've...we've got a woman in labor over here.”

 

“What?!” she said, swinging the control stick to try and “leap” the Recognizer over an obstruction. “Don't look at me, honey. Probably a good thing you missed most of the screaming and yelling. Sam inherited my stubborn streak.”   


“I'll...handle it. Keep driving.” _Something tells me all those workshops, books, and classes we took to prep for Sam are not going to help here._

 

The Recognizer jolted again, and Kanna turned pale, whimpering. Herd took one of her hands, sending in what comfort and energy he could.

 

Tron may not have understood what was going on, but he did recognize pain and fear. He put a hand on Kanna's shoulder. “You're in good hands, Kanna. Take it easy.”

 

“We're almost out of the valley,” Jordan said. “Hold on...” The Recognizer suddenly lurched sharply to the left. “What the -?!”

 

“What's going on?” Tron shouted.

 

Jordan didn't dare look over her shoulder. “Looks like those Hogs didn't leave the valley after all. We've hit an ambush!”

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

** Chapter 12 **

 

The Recognizer's movements were compromised already with an inexperienced driver at the controls, and emerging from the valley, they ran smack into a gauntlet of tanks and snipers. Individually, the shots would do little against the Recognizer's armor. As a group, and against an ill-maintained craft, the stood a good chance of disabling it.

 

“Clu, can you signal the System Guards?” Tron asked.

 

“Those null-units shot the radio!” Out of frustration, he kicked the panel, which fell to the deck with a clang and exposed the fried power distribution. “I'll try a bypass.”

 

Jordan didn't dare look away from the controls. Their choices boiled down to the following; try to dodge the shots while steering something the size of a four-story building (improbable at best) or blast right on through the blockade.

 

“Guess we're running the gauntlet,” Jordan said.

 

Gunning the engine to full, she pushed the lever forward as hard as she could. Shots glanced off it, the gyroscopic stabilizers were shrieking and sending up all kinds of warnings, and the tanks she rocketed past turned around and began pursuit.

 

“Jordan, keep trying to outrun them,” Tron said, activating the weapon controls. “Melodia, do the cannons work?”

 

“They do,” she said.

 

“Best news I've heard this microcycle.” Lining up the sights on the weapon control, Tron fired and the first of the stolen tanks was blasted to bits.

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin literally had his hands full.

 

Kanna was still half-sitting on the deck, trying to breathe as she gripped her and Herd's fused disks with one hand. Herd was gripping the other edge of the disks as Kevin reached inside the code. The circuits of both Isos flickered erratically.

 

“Deep breaths, Kanna. Herd, you too. I don't need either of you passing out.” Both hands were reaching inside the 3-D display, arranging and piecing together the third piece of the puzzle that was insistent about joining the Grid in the middle of a firefight.

 

It was like programming with a gun to his head and a deadline, and with the beating he had taken today, it was tempting for him to pass out. His fingers flew across the code. His eyes glazed.

 

 _Deep breaths, Flynn. If_ _ **you**_ _can't hold it together...._ His eyes slipped shut for a second and he could feel it – the little glimmer of life. He had created and healed enough Programs to sense that mysterious element that they called 'spark' and Users called 'soul,' but he had never encountered one without the layers of shell and source code.

 

It was astonishing, amazing, and humbling all at once.

 

“There it is,” he breathed, astonished by the discovery. “I found the baby. Let me give it a gentle -”

 

The deck lurched beneath them, jolting him out of concentration. Damn it! A glance over his shoulder and he saw the problem – even without their base or The Baron, the remaining Resource Hogs were bent on taking them all to the Void with them. He moved his body to block their view of the monitor.

 

“We just hit some obstacles. They'll take care of it.” Kevin positioned himself again and sucked in a breath. “Keep your thoughts on the kid, all right?”

 

On his second trip to Encom's servers, the old Guardian Dumont was just as full of advice and well-wishes as Gibbs had been the day he took over Dillinger's office. _All that is visible, must extend beyond itself into the realm of the invisible. All comes from the Void, and all returns to it._ At the time, it seemed like fortune-cookie sayings, and Kevin only gave half-an ear to it. Now?

 

He reached in again, clearing his mind of even the numerical sequences he used as a focus, reaching into the Void with his mind and heart as his fingers seemed to move of their own accord. In that darkness, he found the tiny spark and pictured pulling it into his hands, in awe over what he was actually seeing – a miracle on a miracle.

 

“Hi, kiddo,” he said quietly. “It's time to come out now.”

 

Cradling that little light, he gently pulled it out from the Void and into the world.  


* * *

 

 

 

Clu pulled himself out from under the controls. “We've got radio back – somewhat. He opened the channel. “System Guard, this is Administrator Clu. We're under attack. Respond!”  


“ _Administrator?”_ asked a static-garbled voice. “ _I...you. The line is -”_

  
“We're five clicks from the valley entrance. I thought I told you to guard the exit.”

  
“ _You...capture the fleeing Hogs....taken on a lot of prisoners, Administrator.”_

  
“Hurl them off the top deck if you have to, but get over here!”

  
“ _Acknowledged.”_

  
The problem with running the gauntlet is that you are guaranteed to get hit. The problem with getting hit is that sometimes one of those hits gets lucky. Sparks shot out from a nearby panel and part of the power conduit de-rezzed.

  
  
“That was the repulsor unit,” Melodia said, running over to the power distribution. “We're not going to be able to lift ourselves. I'm trying -”

  
“Trying to sabotage us,” Clu snarled. 

  
Melodia ignored him, her slim fingers working the power node configuration. “Re-routing power to something that might help."

  
Jordan halted the Recognizer. “Crap. Dead-end.” The valley entrance was fully collapsed. “Without the repulsor, we can't jump it.”

  
“Power boost to weapons,” Tron reported, sending out a scattered volley of fire that took out a chunk of valley wall and five tanks with it. “Thanks. Needed that.”

  
Melodia staggered across the shaking deck of the wounded Recognizer, over to the radio. Clu tried to shove her out of the way, but not before she opened a channel.   


“Attention all Resource Hogs. This is Melodia. The Baron has been de-rezzed, putting me in command. I order all of you to stand down. Repeat. _You will stand down_.”  


“ _Mel...?” came the voice over the radio, still more static than coherent audio. “What -”_

  
“Stand down. As in 'stop firing!'” she barked.  


The radio chatter was full of static, but the division started as soon as she stopped speaking.   


“ _Baron's de-rezzed?”_  


“ _User probably...that craft.”_   


“ _Melodia...traitor!”_  


“ _Destroy that Reco! Have it all!”_  


“ _I destroy you!”_  


“ _No, I'll have it all!”_  


Most of the Hogs didn't stand down, but they did turn to fighting amongst themselves. Melodia stepped aside, and went back to the engineering station without another word, pointedly not looking anyone in the eye.   


Two large shadows passed by the monitor and firepower began to rain down on the valley. “What are those?” Jordan asked. “More trouble?”

  
  
A voice called over the radio. “ _Administrator...status.”_

  
Clu said. “The System Guard finally pulls their heads out of defrag. We've been rescued.”  


The squabbling remainder of the hogs were quickly destroyed or captured by the three System Guard Recognizers dropping into the valley, cannons firing. A collective sigh of relief passed over the occupants of the bridge...  


Followed by the faint cry of an infant.  


 

Kanna was still half-lying on the deck, Herd kneeling next to her and holding her hand. Kevin was on his feet and holding a small bundle, looking too stunned to utter words. Jordan, Tron, and Clu left their posts and moved in.

 

Kevin moved over a flap of cloth. A small infant looked up at them with infinitely blue eyes, the hexagonal marking of Iso next to the designation of female on her tiny arm. “It's a girl,” he said shakily, as if not quite believing it himself.

 

Jordan couldn't even breathe. She leaned against Kevin's shoulder to get a better look. “Oh, my God...It...she...”  


“Yeah,” Kevin said shakily. “She's smaller than even Sam was...”

 

Clu scowled uncomfortably and took a step back, but Tron's curiosity got the better of him. Cautiously, he touched the child's open palm. The little Iso responded by clasping her hand around his finger. “Fascinating...”

 

Herd let out a nervous sigh. “She seems perfectly formed, but so...small.”

 

“The Isos are self-replicating?” Clu said nervously. “Like viruses or...or gridbugs?”

 

“No, Clu, more like Users,” Kevin explained. “I told you about Sam. Well, he's...he's a lot like this at the moment. But give it some cycles and...” Kevin handed the infant back to Kanna, who cradled it close. He then shook Herd's hand. “You're in for it, man. Sleepless nights, 3AM feedings; totally worth it, though. Congratulations, both of you.”

 

Clu turned away, making a show of going back to the radio console. Tron didn't fall for it, walking up behind him.

 

“Clu...”

 

Clu turned around, dropping his voice. “ _Viruses_ self-replicate. _Gridbugs_ self-replicate. The Isos crawling out of the Sea unbalance things enough already. Doesn't this...? Don't you see how dangerous this is?”

 

Tron shrugged. “Flynn's not worried. Jordan's not worried, so I won't be.”

 

Clu was practically scraping his jaw from the ground. “And...and that's enough for you?”

 

“Yes. I trust the Users. I also trust Herd and Kanna. They have more than proved themselves today. There is no sign that 'baby' can infect a Program, no indication that it can damage code, or otherwise harm anything. We fought off a horde of corrupted Programs today, and they did a hundred times more damage than a single Iso.”

 

“But if they can replicate -”

 

“It makes them no different than they were when they came out of the Sea.” Tron folded his arms, smiling. “She's merely another reason to defend and perfect the Grid, another reason to carry out our directives. What could be more perfect than that?”

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

 

The Iso settlement had taken heavy damage, and many losses, but the survivors were quick to begin the work of cleanup. Tron was working on carrying some debris out of a road in order for repairs to get underway. Clu was using his debugging subroutine on a collapsed aqueduct, removing the blockages so that energy began to flow again.

 

Shaddox and the Users were in conference with the settlement's leaders, planning out the rebuild – and the sector's future development. They looked over the display of the sector pulled from Shaddox's disk.

 

“Well, now that the Hogs have left the sector, the best way to keep them from coming back is to allocate a designated settlement around that power node,” Shaddox said, pointing out where the Resource Hog base used to be. “I'd say it's a fine location for a new colony. That will also solve the trouble we are having with overpopulation in Zeta sector.”

 

“We would not be adverse to integrating our peoples, Shaddox,” Maya said. “Perhaps if Iso and Basic become neighbors, we'll be able to understand each other better.”

 

Jordan raised an eyebrow. “So long as whatever's left of that base gets demolished.”

 

Kevin shrugged, and put an arm around her waist. “Couple keystrokes and it's gone, babe, but anything you want put in its place?”

 

She grinned. “How about an arena, like the one in the city? Lazer tag nights...obstacle course. I still remember enough of the bunkers at Fort Sherman to come up with a really spectacular one.”

 

Kevin's eyes lit up and his face split into a grin. “Marry me.”

 

“Already did.”

 

“I know. Smartest idea to date.”

 

“You're almost out of the hole you've dug, Tiger,” she said, biting back a chuckle.

 

“How about using that parks and rec building you sketched out on the living room table? Give the town more options to mix and mingle.”

 

She had to do a double-take at that. “You liked that one?”

 

“I like most of them! You're as bad as me with the drawing and sketches all over the place.” He turned to the assembled Programs. “You should see our house back on the other side – between my computer parts and her drawings...” He glanced over his shoulder. “Excuse me a second.”

 

 

 

Melodia was somewhat glad to be ignored. She was standing knee-deep in the energy fountain, but the buzz of power lost most of its appeal. They had relieved her of her suffusion gun, at least. She also noticed the last of the green tint had bled from her circuitry along with most of her augmentation. The only thing that remind of it was her rainbow-colored hair.

 

 _ISO = VIRUS_ read the crude graffiti on the ruined sculpture.

 

At the time, she looked the other way. The sector belonged to them – the gang, The Baron, her...Not to the Isos, who were invaders on a System by and for Programs. By the time she realized how glitched The Baron was, it was almost too late.

 

What a bit-brain she had been.

 

She picked up a discarded stone and began hacking away at the graffiti. At least she could try and remove one mistake before her inevitable de-rez.

 

“Melodia, right?” The voice startled her midway through chipping away the “V.” She turned around to see Kevin Flynn, The Creator himself, approaching. She dropped the rock with a splash and was about to get down on her knees when she stopped her.

 

“None of that, now,” he said. “I know I'm great, but not quite that great.”

 

She was trying not to shake. “I'm ready,” she said.

 

“For what?”

 

“For de-resolution. I'm flawed...glitched. I let myself get hooked on power. I've destroyed some of your creations and served The Baron. I even argued for him to de-rez your Champion. I can't even remember my directive.”

 

“If that's the case, then why did you turn on him? Just curious.”

 

“At first? Fear of you. But your presence, your actions, and those of the ones loyal to you...made me doubt, made me re-think what I was doing and what I'd become. The more I thought about it...” she shook her head. “It wasn't what I wanted to be.”

 

“You could have saved yourself a couple times, you know,” he pointed out. “Just ran out in the confusion. I did tell you to run.”

 

She forced herself to look up. Like most citizens of the Grid, she had a certain image of the Users and the Creator in particular. That image was very much at odds with the reality – a smiling, somewhat scruffy-looking male-designated that seemed little different from an off-duty game script. “I'd done so many wrong things up until that point. If I was going to get myself de-rezzed, might as well do it for the right reason.”

 

“Are you _interested_ in doing the right thing, Melodia? Think this over. You saw yourself how easy the wrong path is. You've seen the benefits of it. You saw how much fun it can be.”

 

“It's...very hard to let go of all those thoughts. It's still tempting, all that power... but I've had my fill of it and it wasn't enough. Somehow this...” She indicated the half-erased graffiti. “Feels better than power. Is that a glitch, Creator?”

 

“I'd say it's anything but a glitch. Doing the right thing can be just as addicting as a power pool.” He reached out and brushed his hand over the remains of the graffiti, wiping it away as though it never was. “I've got an alternative sentence for you – if you're interested.”

 

“And here I thought it would be simpler to de-rez me.”

 

“I like doing things the hard way. Still interested?”

 

“State your command,” she said, bracing herself.

 

“I want you to go out to the cities, the Iso settlements...everywhere from Tron City to the Outlands. I want you to find the _Programs and Isos_ who would be in the most danger of falling like you did. I want you to use that pretty voice of yours and tell them about your mistakes so that they don't do it themselves. And I want you to look after them – keep them away from guys like The Baron. Think you can take that on?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Good. I'll be keeping an eye on you. Now, I think Tor can put you to work on the cleanup.” Clasping her on the back, he guided her out of the pool. “Go and sin no more.”

 

As Melodia walked away, Jordan came up behind him, arms folded. “Lora warned me that you are the world's hardest man to stay mad at.”

 

He held up his hands. “Guilty. Anything else she warn you about?”

 

She looked around as if it all was finally sinking in. “I walk into the arcade thinking I'm going to bust you with your pants down, and I end up taking the most life-threatening, amazing, and crazy trip of my life. It's worth it to you?”

 

“It's worth everything. We have billion-dollar satellites shouting into the void in the hope we're not alone. Meanwhile, here's _life_ , right under our noses every time we switch on a computer. It would change _everything_...” He sighed. “You didn't get the introduction to it that I would have liked to give you, but I'm glad that you did find out.”

 

“Did you try to tell someone?”

 

“Gibbs figured it out, actually, but then he had his stroke. Passed away before I could show him. Lora? I'd trust her with my life, with Sam, with the keys to my Ducati. Her bosses in DC? Different story.”

 

“Alan?”

 

Kevin sighed. “Tried to tell him, but his exact words were, 'Flynn, you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, with a wife and a child. Quit smoking that shit.' The only way he'll believe this is if I knock him out and drag him in here.”

 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, that's Alan. We love him anyway.”

 

“You've only seen a glimpse of how far this wonderland goes. The simplest of Programs blows the Turing Test to atoms. The Isos? There's so much about them that I'll never understand, even if I had centuries to play around in here. I didn't know they could reproduce until today!”

 

One arm wrapped around her waist as the other gestured around the colony, to the dim cliffs of the Outlands, to the coruscating lights of Tron City in the distance. “Despite the danger, despite everything, this world is something I have to be part of. This is bigger than me, bigger than the company, and...” He sighed, letting go of her. “Don't make me choose between this world and you, Jordan, because...”

 

“I don't want you to choose,” she said. “Because this is where you belong. You need to be here.”

 

Kevin blinked. It was rare event for him to be stunned to silence, but Jordan managed it. He stepped away, making a show of getting down on one knee. “Jordan Canas, share both worlds with me. What do you say?”

 

She had to snicker. His real-world proposal was looking across the bed and saying, _“Crazy idea; let's hit City Hall and get it out of the way before the kid arrives.”_ It suited her fine, actually. So, she knelt down to look him right in the eye, grinning. “On one condition; hide something like this from me again, and I'll kick your ass.”

 

“Deal. Your pattern's stored now, so we can come here any time we're free. Encom's working on those correction algorithms from the outside while I'm working on them from in here. It's slow going, but once a third set opens up...”

 

“It will depend on how old Sam is at that point,” she cautioned. “And whether we can make sure the truly hazardous elements are dealt with first.”

 

“C'mon, a world that's one big video game? What little boy won't love that, especially one with half of my genetics? Besides, we introduce him to Herd and Kanna's little girl – playmate his age, maybe...”

 

Jordan chuckled. “You have a point. So, we still have the equivalent of a couple hours before we have to get back. Any _non_ -life-threatening wonders you want to show me?”

 

“Plenty, but there is something I want to try...” He gave her a positively filthy smile as he slid a finger down the thickest circuit line on her back.

 

It felt like the best deep tissue massage invented, radiating down her back and into her arms with a pleasant tingle. She gasped, struggling to keep her composure. “Oh, that feels...I take it this is a two-player game, Mr. Flynn?” She retaliated by finding the node just under the hem of his jacket, right above his rear, and pressing the flat of her palm into it.

 

She was rewarded with his eyes rolling back and a muffled groan. “You'd be right, Sergeant Canas. I've got a replica of the arcade on the City outskirts – complete with a duplicate of _that_ couch.”

 

Jordan raised one blonde eyebrow. “Race you, Tiger.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Three nano-cycles later, the Users returned to their own world, the console readout in the central processing unit verifying the pair of Users had safely left the system. Two figures watched the fading light of the portal from their vantage in the central processor,

 

“Alan-1 and Lora-Prime bundled you and Yori together, right?” Clu asked.

 

“On the old system, yes,” Tron said. “And should Lora-Prime ever come to the Grid, she'll have my profound thanks.”

 

Clu leaned back in his chair, feet on the console. “You realize 'Alan-1' and 'Lora-Prime' didn't have a glitching idea what they were doing. All they needed were a set of Programs with complementary functions. They're out there, completely ignorant of you and her. Doesn't it bother you, man?”

 

“No. Eventually, we'll work out the calculations and they'll come here like Jordan did.”

 

“Then there's Jordan. She and their offspring seem to be half the reason why Flynn can go cycles without checking in. I understand needing to interface and blow off excess energy, but the whole idea of getting bundled just seems to be a Resource Hog in and of itself.”

 

“Clu, I hope someday you'll find out. Maybe Flynn will create partners for you, maybe you'll find that perfect complement to yourself somewhere in the System. When you do find that someone, you will want to spend a lot of time with them. Their functions will augment your own, your spark will call and theirs will answer. You will be stronger together than you ever were alone.”

 

“Even after seeing Flynn and Jordan, and how marvelously imperfect Users are, you still believe in all that Guardian superstition?” Clu said with a sniff.

 

Tron scowled hard. “You're too recent a version to have lived through Master Control, and be glad you never did. In my darkest cycles, when I thought the Users abandoned us, the thought of Yori kept me fighting.”

 

“You had doubt?” Clu found this very interesting and swung around to put his feet back on the floor, grinning. “Mister _'I fight for the Users'_ had doubt back in the day? Stop the print spooler, I've heard everything!”

 

“Clu...” Tron's voice lowered in warning. Avatar or not, there were some lines it was unwise to cross. “I fight for the Users. By extension, I fight for every life on this system. That is my function, my directive. Your function is to act in Flynn's place, to be strong where he is weak, and to be here when he can't be. You've been created for a great purpose, and as long as you serve the Users, I'll fight for you, too. Flynn and Jordan have gone home. It's time for me to get back to mine. ”

 

Turning on his heel, Tron took measured strides to the elevator leading to the cycle bay. Clu looked out over the Grid's expanse and the lone, indigo tower.

 

_I wonder how much more efficient they would be if they weren't bundled._

 

It didn't matter. He had his own project to work on. The tower's elevator had over a hundred floors above the surface, but at least a dozen below. And the last of those basements was Clu's alone. He had been given far more leeway than any other Program in modifying and maintaining the system. He could divert roads and energy rivers. He could plan out new settlements and demolish those that had become obsolete. The thrill of shaping perfection in landscape and architecture was a massive challenge for any Program to undertake.

 

Yet, he was not just another Program. He had all of his creator's drives; the need to experiment, the need to play, the need to test the limits of his capacity and then find ways to surpass the limitations.

 

The presence of Jordan-User and the time he spent with her was like both ends of a rod weapon; useful, painful, deadly, and effective all at once. Her aggression and focus counterbalanced Kevin's relaxed attitudes. She was as stunning as the most well-crafted Armory Siren with her ample chest and hips. Clu had to admit that she was everything Kevin said she was and more, but his User was stretched between the worlds and not able to focus properly on either. Clu had been the one training her for the Grid's life, showing her his world and its potential. He showed Jordan its glittering cities and its vast wastelands. They fought its dangers through The Baron's base.

 

Had she been a Program...

 

But she wasn't and he was. He was “demigod” among Programs, but still a simulation; a perfect copy of an imperfect User. Every reflective surface told him this. Every time he heard his User's name reminding him that no matter what he did or what perfection he wrought, his User would get the credit and glory while his only pride would be the knowledge that he carried out his directives brilliantly. That would be the ultimate reward for any _other_ script, of course.

 

He was different and so his rewards would likewise be different. Kevin Flynn was not the only one who kept secrets from those closest to him.

 

The subbasement had a decompiler rack salvaged from the ruins of The Baron's headquarters. Ostensibly, he had ordered it destroyed. The truth was that the old torture rack had been destroyed – and re-shaped into something with far more interesting potential.

 

He turned to the two silent System Guards at the door. “Bring in the first prisoner we got from the Resource Hog gang.”

 

This was far more merciful than de-rezzing them, correct? Every Program would have a place, a purpose, a function. Like millions of puzzle pieces, they would all fit into a greater whole.

 

A _perfect_ whole.

 


	14. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 

In the months that followed, Kevin and Jordan would make many more trips to the Grid and have many more adventures. Builder and Fighter, Creator and Counterpart, the pair brought new ideas and energy to the System, united by love for its creations and love for each other.

 

The Golden Age of the Grid began. New cities sprung up in far-flung frontiers, the problems of rogue scripts and gridbugs could not be eliminated, but they were chased further to the margins. Arjin City became the spiritual center of the Grid, where Iso and Program lived together in harmony. Yet other places, like the Kappa sector, exhibited signs of the two species reaching across to one another, forming fragile alliances and friendships.

 

It ended on a January night in 1985. A drunk driver went the wrong way down a one-way street, going well over the speed limit. His car hit Jordan Canas's head-on. She died five hours later without regaining consciousness. Her death ended the Golden Age of the Grid. Distracted by his grief and overwhelmed by the added responsibilities of the analog world, Kevin did not see his dream, his miracle, break down around him until it was too late.

 

Clu grew impatient and angry, eventually spilling over into brutality. Tron was the first casualty, and the Creator was eventually beaten back into exile. The Cities became mazes of fear. The shining beacon of the I/O Tower was bombed to ruins, the gutted remains standing as mute testimony of a world where no User was welcome.

 

Despite this, Melodia remained true to her new directive and true to the Creator's dream. Recruiting from the vulnerable and broken scripts on the margins of Grid society, she assembled The Fallen Ones, one of the most frightening and respected forces in the Resistance against Clu's tyranny. Her two best spies infiltrated the End of Line club as simple MP3 Programs, and not even Zuse realized that his favorite musicians didn't truly work for him.

 

The Iso colonies burned. Herd and Kanna were killed in the Purge, attempting to evacuate the Bostrum colony ahead of the Abraxas virus. Both perished when Clu's forces bombed the colony.

 

Their daughter survived...and escaped the Grid.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was written way back when for the LJ Tron Kink meme, but I realized I forgot to port it to Ao3. The whole idea kinda built itself around trying to think of what kind of woman Sam's mom would have been like; the only things we "know" were that she was an architect, and she met Kevin, married him, had Sam, and got killed in a car wreck (yay for women and fridges?) in the span of two years, give or take. I figured an ex-military ladette capable of kicking Flynn's butt at his own game would explain a few things about Sam and be strong and stable enough to handle the ball of crazy that is 80's!Flynn and fit in with the Encom gang without actually being part of them. And while I've made some posts that are highly critical of Kevin Flynn, I would like to view him as a hero who seriously lost his way, and wanted to write a story that showed him as a flawed, but good man who genuinely loved all The Grid's lifeforms, while mitigating some of the more frustrating parts of his canon.


End file.
